


The Measure of Life

by panaceaa



Category: South Park
Genre: Character Death, Character Study, Dorks in Love, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Growing Up Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Romance, Slice of Life, The Creek is mostly background, and K2 is singlehandedly taking over this fic, sorry they run this town now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-04-04 09:58:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 75,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14017770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panaceaa/pseuds/panaceaa
Summary: The kids in South Park are growing up and growing older, one moment at a time.





	1. Beginnings

They are young, no older than four. Their lives have only just begun, so their universe consists of fragmented thoughts and cycles of events that become ingrained within them through the sheer power of repetition.

This is how it starts.

__________________

 

Kenny’s world is constant gnawing hunger and hiding himself in the bright orange parka that his momma bought for him with what little money they had. It’s a rough and faded existence, but it’s all that he knows. And so, he cherishes his parka as a child might cling to a favorite blanket, and looks at the world with the bright-eyed gaze of a child who does not yet know that there are children out there who have never known what it feels like to go hungry.

It is a day as ordinary as any other.

Kenny walks out of his house, little legs sinking deep into the patches of snow as he collects rocks and small flowers that have somehow survived the cold. He’s leaning down to pick up another rock when he spots a flower on the other side of the tracks. It’s large and beautiful, with yellow petals and a deep green stem. It’s something like the cartoon flowers he would sometimes see on TV, something perfect and beautiful, and nothing like the small withered weeds he’d been collecting. He wants it, as much as a young child can want anything, but his feet hesitate on his side of the tracks.

_Don’t go near the tracks, Kenny._

The train tracks have always served as a sort of divide. There is a world so unlike his own sitting on the other side, and sometimes Kenny liked to sit in the snow and just look over there. His family crossed over there on days that they went to church, and so he imagines that maybe his parents tell him not to cross the tracks because if he does so when it’s not a church day then maybe he might anger God or something. Because he imagines that maybe the world over there is something like heaven, where only special people get to go on normal days.

But he is young, with a heart unaccustomed to fear. And so, he takes one look behind him for any sign of his parents, and then takes one single step onto the tracks.

The train comes out of nowhere.

Kenny is left frozen, barely three and staring up at the monstrous machine rushing towards him, immediately preceding the feeling of the bone-crushing impact only a moment before all goes black.

The next thing he knows, he’s waking up in his bed. It’s the middle of the night, but although his body thrums with the recollection of the collision, his skin is whole and unmarked. His beloved parka showing only faint signs of wear, and suggesting nothing of the accident.

And so, Kenny squeezes his eyes shut and tells himself it was just a dream. A horrible, terrible dream.

***

Eric hears a scream from his mother's bedroom. He is woken up by the sound of it in the middle of the night.

“Ma?” he whispers into the dark, before sliding down from his bed and slowly walking out into the hallway. It’s only once he steps out from his room that he hears a strange thumping sound coming from his mother’s bedroom, followed by another scream.

“Ma!?” Without thinking he runs over and slams his little pudgy fist on the door, but there’s no response. He tries turning the doors handle only to find it locked. The sounds don’t stop, and at only the age of three and overwhelmed by the thought of something horrible happening to his mother, Eric does the only thing he can do and runs back to his room to hide under his covers.

That’s how his mother finds him in the morning, curled up in a ball with his tears long dried up.

“Sweetie, are you feeling alright?”

She sounds fine, and when he peaks over his shoulder she looks fine, and he tries to rationalize it, but comes up blank. He wants to ask her, but he’s afraid of the answer. Afraid that saying it out loud will make it more real. He just can’t stop hearing it and wants it to go away. Wants to bury it like he buried his favorite stuffed animal after it called him fat one too many times.

“Hmm… how about a pot-pie, hun?” Liane Cartman says eventually when she doesn’t get a response. “Will that make you feel better?”

Without looking at his mother, he nods.

***

There is a weird scuffling coming from beneath his bed.

It’s late and Kyle can’t sleep, picturing a monster with a thousand eyes, or perhaps a bug the size of his fist that will crawl down his throat as he sleeps. He eyes the ground warily, before he jumps down and practically runs to his door and down the stairs.

Downstairs his parents are still awake. His mother is in the kitchen drying the dishes, while his father is in the living room, reading.

He starts with his mother.

“Mommy,” he says, but Sheila doesn’t turn around. He stomps his foot, “Mommy!”

“Kyle,” she says, looking up with surprise. “What are you doing out of bed?”

“Somethin’ under bed,” he explains.

His mother shakes her head at him and returns to drying off the plate she’s holding. “That’s ridiculous, bubbe.”

He blinks at her, but even at three, Kyle knows better than to argue with his mother, at least not while he still has another option. So, he goes to his dad.

“Somethin’ under bed!”

Gerald only spares him a quick glance from his book, “Kyle, I promise nothing’s under there. Just go back to sleep.”

“But-“

“ _Now_ , Kyle.”

And so, he clenches his hands into fists and stomps his way up to his room, fear vanishing in the face of fury.

He’d deal with it himself.

***

Stan is watching TV while he sits at the coffee table and draws. He doesn’t really understand what’s happening on the show, since he only looks up at it every so often, but what he does know is that on the screen is a family.

They’re playing some sort of game in the backyard, or at least they were until the dog stole their ball and then they apparently had to split into teams as a part of their plan on getting it back. Even as young as he is, Stan thinks it’s pretty stupid, but still, they’re smiling and happy and he kind of wants to play and be stupid with them.

On the coffee table sits the drawing he’s been working on, a simple stick figure drawing of his own family, which Stan’s three-year-old mind pretty much considers a masterpiece. He draws his mom with a pretty triangle dress, and himself with his favorite poofball hat, and his sister with horns like the devil, and his dad with-

Well, he was still working on him.

As if on cue, the next moment his dad comes stumbling through the front door in nothing but his underwear while waving some sort of glass bottle around in his hand. Stan looks up, but his father walks right past him and into the kitchen. Soon enough, from where he’s sitting he can hear his mother yelling, then his father yells just as loud, and together their voices drown out those on the TV.

He looks up at the smiling family on the screen, before looking down at his drawing. He scribbles out the figure of his dad before he crumples the paper up altogether and walks up to his room to lay down.

When he falls asleep, he dreams of having a normal family.

___________________

It is the first time, but will by no extent be the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya! Just wanna let you guys know that the writing style does change a bit as the chapters go on. Things get a little less flowery and more narrative. Oh, and also happier :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!<3


	2. The Angel

It’s Sunday morning.

It’s Sunday morning, and so Kenny’s at church with his parents and brother, in the same way they are at this time every week. The priest is saying words that he hardly understands at his age, only picking up bits and pieces of things. So, to pass the time, he looks around the church and at the pictures depicted around the building.

He stares upon the stained glass windows, pictures shining with the morning light. Winged angels, and golden halos. He thinks they look familiar, but he’s not exactly sure why that is. A distant dream maybe, or a forgotten memory.

But, although he is aware of the comforting feeling he gets when looking at them, Kenny is still much too young for deep questioning.

So, at barely over three years old, Kenny just reaches his tiny fingers toward the sun shining through the glass and imagines there’s someone up there who’s reaching back all the same.

***

He keeps dying.

The first few times he passed it off as bad dreams, but there’s only so many times you can lay there bleeding in the middle of the street before it becomes something that’s impossible to ignore. He doesn’t know if maybe he made God angry or something, or if maybe God’s just up there trying to keep saving him. Death is still somewhat of a mystery to him, but he thinks he knows enough about it to know that it’s supposed to be final. People aren’t supposed to come back from it, not unless they’re Jesus. And Kenny’s pretty sure he’s not Jesus.

He just has so many questions and no one who can answer any of them. He is the paragon of curiosity, but where most three-year-olds asked questions about simple things like why their block tower fell over, Kenny wanted to know if there was something connecting him to the stories he’d hear at church.

So, late at night alone in his room, Kenny clasps his hands and lowers his head. He doesn’t know much about praying, but he thinks he gets the gist of it.

And he asks God for an answer.

***

Kenny is in the front of his house, drawing on the road with a few pieces of sidewalk chalk he had found abandoned a few weeks ago. He’s drawing an angel, a simple stick figure with wings and a halo, when he hears it.

He looks up to see the massive truck rushing towards him and squeezes his eyes shut, bracing himself for impact.

But it never comes. Instead, there’s a faint brush of wind against the exposed portion of his face, and the tremor of the ground as the massive vehicle passes right by him.

Kenny stares after it in shock, before his gaze falls to his palm to see that he’d crushed the piece of chalk into dust within his fragile hand. The wind blows it away and it lands like mist around his angel’s face.

***

Days turn into weeks, and weeks give way to months and still, Kenny does not die.

He looks up at the sky every day, but he’s not sure what he’s supposed to see. Not sure what it’s supposed to mean.

It’s not until later that he finally finds an understanding. That he finally gets his answer.

***

It’s Sunday morning.

He walks into the kitchen only to see his mother and father sitting down at the table.

“Mornin’ son,” his father says to him, before sharing a look with his mom. “Come over here and sit down for a second, your mom and I have somethin’ to tell ya.”

Kenny listens and sits down, looking between the two of them curiously.

“Kenny, your mom and I are having a baby,” his father finally says, slowly, unsure if he would understand, “do you know what that means?”

Kenny does.

He hops down from the chair and walks over to his mother who’s gently holding her stomach.

She smiles down at him, “You’re gonna have a little sister,” she whispers, as soft as he’s ever heard her. Kenny smiles back at her and places a hand on her belly.

He wonders if she knows that she’ll be giving birth to an angel.


	3. Preschool

It was an especially warm day for South Park, the summer fighting its inevitable departure as the month of September opened the doors for autumn. In front of the doors to South Park Elementary, stood several pairs of parents. They were all absent of their children, all except for one.

“Don’ leave!” Eric Cartman wailed, as he clutched desperately at his mother’s clothes.

“Oh dear,” said Liane Cartman, looking around for assistance. “Now, now Eric, don’t you want to go to your first day of Preschool?”

He just continues to cry loudly in response, and eventually a teacher comes from the school building. With her help, his mother finally manages to pry her son’s hands from her clothes.

Hold finally broken, Eric looks at his mother, pudgy hand reaching out, hoping she might change her mind. “Don’ leave…”

“Bye bye!” She waved instead, a bright smile on her face. “Have fun sweetie!”

And the teacher dragged him away, pulling him into the building and shutting the doors behind her. Then together, they entered the classroom. Entered a room full of kids where each and every one of them was staring at him. They were staring, and Eric knew he could work that to his advantage, no matter the circumstances.

But then one spoke up.

“What are you cryin’ for?”

It’s an innocent enough question, yet it’s also putting the focus on something that never should have been focused on, putting words to something that should have been ignored. Eric wanted it to be ignored. Who did this kid think he was anyway?

He recognized the kid only faintly, from when he would go shopping with his mom, or forced playdates he never really wanted any part in. Still, he knew _enough_.

And so, Eric Cartman blinked away his tears and tightened his small hands into fists. _“Shut up you stupid Jew!”_

***

Stan thought by coming to preschool he’d be getting away from the stupid fighting.

The fat one is throwing his arms around in some semblance of a hissy fit, while the skinny kid is looking angrier by the moment. Stan looks around for their teacher only to see her trying to stop some kid from eating glue or something. And so, it fell to him.

“I don’ get why you’re so mad, that’s what you are innit? A stupid Jew?”

 _“_ God _you’re such a bitch sometimes! You just don’t want me to have any fun!”_

“Stop callin’ me, Jew! My name is Kyle!”

_“Randy, would you quit it! Do you even hear yourself!?”_

It’s a scene he knows well, only this time he’s on even ground. They can’t ground him, can’t send him to his room.

His gaze narrows.

“Shut up, fatass. Kyle’s right.”

***

Kenny watches them, only half-interested, from where he is. He’s drawing a flower using some crayons he found on the table. His family might have never been able to afford art supplies but he had found that abandoned chalk left on the sidewalk before. This was nicer. Especially since he didn’t have to worry about getting hit by any trucks like he did when he’d color on the sidewalk.

A little blond boy wanders up to his table. He’s fiddling with his hands, as if he’s nervous or something. “Oh gee, they’re really goin’ at it, huh?”

Kenny doesn’t respond, just gives a small little shrug.

The boy looks at him as if waiting for him to reply, but when it becomes clear that he’s not going to, he wanders away. Probaby to find some more interesting company.

Kenny doesn’t mind. He adds some orange petals to his yellow flower.

He gets so lost in his drawing that he doesn’t notice that the fighting has stopped, or that the argumentative boy had managed to find his way over to his table.

“Can I draw too?”

Through the fur on the hood of his parka, Kenny gives the boy a cursory side glance. His hat is green and his jacket is orange, and had the colors been been swapped he would have looked like his flower. They aren’t though, and Kenny doesn’t really know how to answer that question, so he just focuses his gaze back down on his paper and shrugs.

Still, the boy doesn’t leave. “I’m Kyle,” he attempts in an alternative approach.

Kenny doesn’t really see why that matters, or why he says it like it’s such an important detail.

He lightly shades the leaves in green.

“There somethin’ wrong with im’?” Another voice answers, and Kenny recognizes it as the voice of the boy Kyle had been fighting with earlier.

“Shut up, fatass.” Kyle snaps before he lowers his voice to speak to him again. “You’re quiet,” he points out, before from out of the corner of his eye Kenny sees him plop down in the seat across from him. “What’s your name?”

Finally looking up from his paper, Kenny inspects him. The first thing he notices is that his eyes are bright green, like the color he had been coloring the leaves on his flower. The second thing he notices is that within those green eyes is something that is abundantly curious, as if he can’t quite figure him out. And maybe he has no idea why this boy is trying so hard to talk to him, but even to Kenny’s five-year old brain it’s very clear that this boy before him is not one to give up easily, not once his mind is set on something.

He won’t be going away anytime soon.

“...Kenny.” His voice comes out muffled from his parka, and Kenny doesn't think he’d even be able to understand him, but then Kyle smiles. Smiles as if Kenny had just given him something special. It seems Kyle doesn’t have any trouble understanding him, at least not while he’s listening as intently as he is.

“I’m Kyle,” he repeats from earlier, and Kenny’s not sure why he says it because he’d heard him the first time. Still, Kenny nods.

“Okay.”

And _once again_ he smiles.

***

Kyle doesn’t know why the boy, Kenny, is so quiet. He doesn’t understand how someone could possibly not want to be heard, Kyle’s been fighting for people to listen to him his whole life after all.

Maybe this boy just hadn’t figured that part of life out yet. That was fine, Kyle could teach him. He’d have time for that though. For now, he just grabs a piece of paper and starts to thoughtlessly draw a picture of a sunrise. Stan, the boy who had sided with him and then followed him over, takes a seat next to him and starts to draw something of his own. Then, after muttering something under his breath, the fatass grabs a piece of paper and situates himself in the seat across from him.

It’s a rough start, but in a week they might even consider themselves friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya! I'm still not entirely sure if people are really into this? But just as a little side note, I'm intending for this fic to go up until everyone's in their late 20s, early 30s, so there are a few more chapters with them as kids/character introductions and then things should really start picking up! :)


	4. The List

By the time Stan is six years old, he’s pretty sure he’s got his life figured out. He has watched a whole lot of shows, and using everything he learned he made a pretty comprehensive list.

1\. Find a wife  
2\. Get a big house  
3\. Get a dog  
4\. Have three kids

It’s about as foolproof as he could get it, and he keeps it in his bedside drawer so he can take it out and look at it every night before he goes to bed.

Even after he’s long memorized its words, he uses it as a reminder.

***

By the time Stan is seven years old, he adds a number five to the list.

1\. Find a wife  
2\. Get a big house  
3\. Get a dog (maybe 5)  
4\. Have three kids  
5\. Be a good dad

When he tells the guys they all laugh at him, so he makes sure to tell everyone that what he wants to be when he gets older is much cooler.

Something like a fireman, or a football player.

And sure, they both seem pretty cool, but geologist sounds pretty cool too until the man himself sets the kitchen on fire in the middle of the night.

***

It’s only when Stan is eight that number one becomes a little more clear.

He’s walking home from school when he hears what sounds like a crying toddler, and he turns with a roll of his eyes only for his world to come to a crashing halt.

It’s a scene right out of the TV shows, a moment so utterly pure and beautiful that Stan gets a weird feeling in his gut witnessing it.

The setup is simple: a girl from his class is crouched down and talking to this little girl who has tears running down her face. The older girl smooths down her hair and wipes away her tears while she gently talks to her, and something she said must have been funny because suddenly the little girl is giggling. The older girl smiles at her, and after her laughter comes to a stop the little girl matches her smile as if nothing was ever wrong. Then she ruffles the little girl’s hair and takes a moment to look after her as she runs off to play on the swingset with the other kids.

Then she turns and Stan is suddenly staring at the face of Wendy Testaburger.

Sure, he’s known the girl since preschool, and sure he’s never paid much attention to her, but then again maybe he’d never really been looking before. Because the girl standing in front of him might just be the most perfect girl he’s ever seen.

She seems a little startled to notice him standing there, but then she easily offers a smile and a wave, and Stan feels whatever has been spinning around in his stomach increase at the sight.

He throws up his lunch all over the pavement. For a moment he’s horrified, but when he looks up she’s trying to hide her laughter from behind her hand, but he can still see the curve of a smile through the holes of her fingers.

He’s so overwhelmed that he can’t even respond when she offers another wave, and a quick “Bye, Stan!” from over her shoulder. All he can do is watch the proud set of her shoulders, and the perfect way her hair falls down her back until she turns a corner and vanishes from his sight as if she’d only been a dream.

When he gets home he pulls out his list, crossing out number one and replacing it with _marry Wendy Testaburger_.


	5. Tweek and Craig

There are 3,600 seconds in an hour. 86,400 in a day. 31.536 million in a year.

Tweek likes to count them. Late at night, when the darkness threatens to eat him and he can’t sleep, there is a little book that Tweek scribes his numbers in. A bright red tattered thing that sits at his desk, next to his dim little lamp that isn’t bright enough to be seen from beneath his bedroom door. It’s a comforting thing, almost as if he’s figuring out the world, piece by piece, number by number. Numbers don’t lie. He can measure his life through facts and percentages, and then face the world the next day feeling just a bit more stable.

He knows that he’s approximately 261.7 million seconds old. He’s figured that out. He also knows that there are 6.146 billion people in the world, and 1 out of every 100 of them is statistically a psychopath.

Tweek also knows that there’s about a 50% chance that he’s mentally insane.

He tries not to think about that one.

***

There is a place in his backyard that Craig doesn’t tell anyone about.

Craig likes to go there. Late at night, when it’s dark enough outside for the stars to shine along in the empty blanket of the sky. It’s nothing special, just a simple tree with some scuffed off bark and broken branches; an entirely insignificant construct that had whispered promises of being able to get away from his friends and his parents in a way that not even his bedroom door could allow. It’s the one place that he knows no one will be able to find him, the one place that he can be safe from the weird kids in his class, and his family being annoying, and just...the world in general.

He knows that if he focuses his gaze on the stars he can pretend that this is all there is. It’s a peaceful feeling. He also knows that as he sits there with the endless starry sky surrounding him and the leaves of the trees blocking out the ground he can imagine that he has become lost within the atmosphere.

Craig also knows that it’s too easy to pretend that this is all that will ever matter, and he really is the only one in the universe.

He tries to tell himself he’s not lonely.

***

They’re sitting in Craig’s house.

It’s been about 604,800 seconds, also known as one single week since the rather unconventional start to their friendship.

Tweek hasn’t been sleeping again. He’s jittery as hell from all the caffeine, and he’s pretty sure his heart rate has increased by about ten percent and it hasn’t gone down to normal for the past four days and he’s pretty sure he could have a heart attack from long-term heart palpitations.

Craig listens to him tell him all this, from the corner of his eye watching his small hands twitching around the controller he’s holding. He doesn’t really know why he does it, but one moment he’s watching the blond's hands, and the next he’s pausing the game they were supposed to be playing, standing and holding out one of his own towards him.

Rather appropriately, Tweek just looks at it in half-startled confusion. “What the hell are you doing?”

Rather inappropriately, Craig just rolls his eyes. “Just come on before I change my mind,” he tells him. “I want to show you something.”

“Agh! How do I know you’re not some sort of psychopath who’s been waiting for the chance to murder me!?“ He panics, endlessly skeptical and wary. Craig just stares at him and eventually, Tweek just takes his hand and follows anyway.

They walk into the backyard, and Craig leads him over to the tree without a word.

It’s only once they’re directly in front of it that Craig releases his hold on Tweek’s hand in favor of grabbing the lowest branch and hoisting himself onto it. He then uses that as leverage to get to the next one, and then to the one after that.

“What the hell, man?” Tweek squawks, “I’m not going up there! What if a branch breaks?”

“It’s not going to break, Tweek. I come up here all the time,” says Craig, trying his best to see him through the leaves. “Trust me, it’s worth it.”

There's a beat of silence before Tweek mutters, “It better be, this is way too much fucking pressure,” before clambering up after him. The action not half as graceful as Craig had displayed priorly. Eventually, after a few choice colorful words, Tweek thoroughly inspects and then settles beside him on the giant branch, after, to his great and immediate relief. it did actually seem sturdy.

“Okay, now are you going to tell me why the hell we’re up here?”

Craig gives him a half amused look before broadly gesturing to the area before them. Tweek looks, and his breath immediately catches.

The night sky stretches intimidatingly overhead, a blanket of ebony threatening to swallow the world into nothing. It was dark, beautiful, intimidating, and somehow the most peaceful thing Tweek had ever witnessed.

Craig snorts out some semblance of a laugh from beside him.

“Told you.”

***

A few days later Tweek sits up in his room, wide awake at night.

_A few days later Craig walks outside to his yard, out into the night._

Hugging his arms to his chest, he gets out of bed and makes his way over to his window and opens up the shades that he normally keeps closed tight.

_Looking up at the tree, he takes a deep breath and pulls out his phone, sending a single question to a number he’s only ever texted once._

And as he looks out at the night sky, his little red book remains where it sits on the desk. The first particles of dust beginning to settle on its cover.

_And he smiles down at the overly fast response, before sitting down in the grass and waiting. The world seeming just slightly less empty._


	6. The Playground

A year ago, Wendy met a boy.

It was a completely ordinary circumstance, an occurrence as mundane as any other. Wendy, at the time, had been seven going on twenty, having dreams and goals that most didn’t discover until they were well into college. Viewing the world in a way that some people went their entire lives being blind to.

Forests destroyed beneath machines. People homeless on the streets while others lived like kings. Poverty and war. Discrimination and oppression.

 _“But why?”_ She would constantly ask, fingernails digging deep into her skin.

The answer was always the same.

_“Because that’s just how things are.”_

Wendy wasn’t stupid, and that wasn’t an answer. She was tired of it.

She remembers the day clearly.

There was no particular trigger for her sudden detour on her way home from school, Wendy just didn’t quite feel like going home. Didn’t want to walk into her house where she knew her parents would have the news on, or where they would be talking about some political issue or another. Listening without helping, talking without action.

Not wanting to go home and not having anywhere else to be, she just walks. Allows her feet to lead her wherever they may go and, surprisingly enough, ends up at the playground. It was a place she used to love as a kid, back when she could stand at the top of the playset and pretend that she ruled the world. That she had it all in the palm of her hand. Sitting down on the park bench, she watches the small children laugh and play. Here she was only seven years old, and already Wendy was finding it hard to remember what it felt like to be that carefree.

“There a reason you’re lookin’ so down?” A boy says from the spot on the bench beside her.

She recognizes him from her classes, not that she’d ever talked to him before. In fact, she’d never really seen him talk to much of anyone before.

Wendy shakes her head, looking out at the expanse of sky and earth before her. Everything seemed so secluded here, so far from everything she heard talked about on TV.

“I want to change the world,” she tells him softly, a firm edge to her tone.

For a moment there is silence as if the boy isn’t quite sure what to say.

Then from the corner of her eye, she sees him shrug and he says, “Well, if that’ll make ya happy, then you should go for it.”

He speaks as if the answer is simple. As if the world can be fixed in just one day.

“I don’t…” she says while looking at her hands, much too small. “I don’t know how.”

It’s not a moment later that she feels the warmth of a hand on her shoulder and she looks up to see his cheerful smile. “Well you got some time to figure stuff out,” he says, giving her shoulder a quick pat before he removes his hand altogether. “Until then you can always just go right ahead and help whoever you can.”

“What?” Wendy’s brow scrunches as if he’d just told her that the way to fix the world was by sleeping. “You mean just one person at a time?”

“Yeah. I mean gee, you might not be put on the news or nothin’,” he gives a small shrug, “but you’ll be makin’ their world just a little bit brighter.”

His smile grows a moment before he’s suddenly taking a single lollipop out of his coat pocket and handing it to her.

She takes it between delicate fingers and looks down at it, unable to stop the inevitable smile that slowly works its way onto her face. “Thank you,” she tells him eventually, after realizing that maybe what he had told her hadn’t been that crazy after all.

***

The next day the boy is once again there. Same spot. Same time. Wendy brings a bag of lollipops that she’d asked her mom to pick up at the store, and she hands one out to every kid on the playground. In the end, she goes up to the boy and in her hands she holds out to him the very last one in the bag.

The boy looks down at it, and he smiles.

It’s not much, but it’s a start.

***

A year later, she and Bebe are walking home from school.

Wendy is detailing everything that had happened the night before, a story involving aliens, Cartman’s ass, and gazing into the variegated mass of Stan’s vomit.

“Wendy, that’s fucking gross,” Bebe points out.

“Yeah, but it was also kind of sweet,” she says with the enchanted sigh of a girl who had nothing but respect for those with even the wildest of imaginations. “Afterwards, he walked me home and we talked a bit,” she continues her tale fondly, “It was about stupid stuff, mostly. It was only when we got to my house that he told me I was pretty and then asked me to be his girlfriend.” In response to the memory, Wendy abruptly bursts into a myriad of giggles and leans her shoulder against Bebe who is practically squealing. “Oh my gosh, he looked so terrified, Bebe! And he spoke so fast I could hardly understand what he was saying!” Wiping the tears from her eyes she shakes her head and finishes in a much softer tone, “But it was cute. Really cute.”

“You two are totally adorable!” Bebe squeals, practically vibrating with excitement. “I’m so totally jealous! Do you think you can set me up with Kyle? Oh! The four of us could go on dates, and play house together! I mean-”

Wendy smiles as Bebe goes on, pretending all the while that her gaze doesn't linger a little too long on the kids playing on the playground as they walk past it. Pretends that she’s staring at Bebe’s excited face and not at the little girl sitting all alone in the distance beyond her head. Pretends that her gaze doesn’t shift to the park bench where the familiar form of a boy stands and makes his way over to meet her.

***

It’s several months later before Wendy goes to the park again. Much like the very first time, there isn’t anything strikingly specific that triggers the sudden path of her feet on her way home from school, just a lot of thoughts and a certain lingering feeling that grows stronger by the day. Stan’s been spending more time with Kyle ever since their friend Kenny died and, in the times when Bebe’s not around, Wendy has gone back to watching the news and listening to politics.

In truth, for a while, she’d almost forgotten how broken the world was.

When she arrives at the park, the scene is incredibly familiar. The small kids are running around and playing, the same as usual. The boy is there, just as he always seems to be.

She walks over to him.

“Hi, Leo.”

He looks over at her and offers a bright smile. She hops up on the bench next to him.

“Haven’t seen ya here in a while, Wendy.”

“I’ve…been busy. I guess,” she tells him slowly, unsure of why there’s a guilty feeling churning in her gut. If Butters notices the pensive turn of her expression, he doesn’t mention it.

“I heard you were datin’ Stan.”

“Yeah,” she says fondly, thankful for the turn of conversation. “He’s really sweet.”

Butters is quiet for a moment before he lets out a small laugh. “I was kinda surprised when I first heard, but you really seem to like im', huh? And well, as long as you’re happy, then that’s all that matters really.”

The guilty feeling returns with vigor, and Wendy doesn’t have the faintest idea as to why. She looks down at her hands and feels like she’s forgetting something. Something that was important, once upon a time.

“Well golly, I know you just got here and all, but I actually just stopped here for a bit and now I should really go,” he says offering her a sincerely apologetic look. “Eric asked me to come to his house to play today. And he’s never done that himself before, so it’d probably be real bad of me to be gettin’ there late.”

Wendy blinks in surprise. This was news to her, Stan hadn’t said anything about Cartman and Butters being close.

“Do you go over his house often?”

Butters nods. “Yeah, ‘specially since Kenny ain’t around anymore. I think Eric misses ‘im even if he won’t admit it,” his expression loses some of its normal cheer as a small frown graces his features. “Stan and Kyle do their own thing a lot, and I think Eric really hates bein’ alone.”

“He’s lucky to have someone like you there for him then,” Wendy says, strangely moved. It took some true optimism to be able to see past the evil tub of lard that made up Eric Cartman.

Butters shakes his head even as the light returns to his eyes. “I like to think we’re both kinda lucky. I mean gee, he sure makes life real excitin’, ya know? All I gotta do is help him out a little sometimes,” he gives a small shrug. “And sure he can be a real big jerk at times, but gee Wendy, I really do think that everyone deserves to be happy.”

At his words, Wendy finds herself looking down at her lap again. Down at the palms of her hands. They were delicate and fit nicely against Stan’s slightly bigger ones, but something was missing. And then it hits her. As nice as it was being Stan’s girlfriend, somehow she had gotten so lost in the motion that she’d abandoned what had once been most important to her. What she wanted more than anything.

_I want to change the world._

“Wait, Butters!”

But by the time she looks up, Butters is gone.

***

The next day when she walks by the park, Butters isn’t there.

And although for awhile they exchange friendly looks in the hallways at school, it isn’t long before even those become something of the distant past.

***

It’s after school, and Wendy’s walking purposely down the hallway. One destination in mind.

To her relief, he’s exactly where she’d thought he’d be, still standing in front of his locker with two of his friends.

As usual, Kyle is loudly talking about something while wildly articulating with his hands. Kenny is leaning against the lockers listening to him, but she notices that Cartman is mysteriously absent.

Although, before she can think too much on that, Stan looks up and spots her. She finds it adorable how his eyes immediately light up, and she can't help but smile as she approaches him.

“Hi, Stan.”

“Hey, Wendy,” he says growing slightly pale, but retaining his lunch for the moment. “What’s up?”

“If you’re not too busy, let’s take a walk around the park today.”

“Wait,” he says, brows scrunching in confusion at the unusual request. “Why there?”

“Because,” she says simply, “I want to.”

Apparently, that’s enough of an argument for Stan, who quickly acquiesces and holds out his hand for her to take. She easily takes it within her own, and with a quick “Later dudes,” to his friends they begin walking. Still, even with their hands connected she does not allow herself to be guided.

Instead, she keeps her head tilted to the sky and leads the way.


	7. The Promise

It’s the first day of fourth grade.

Kenny is standing in front of the bathroom mirror before school, looking into its cracked surface as he frequently does. Looking at his unruly blond hair, blue eyes, and skin pale from infrequent exposure to the sun; he knows for a fact that he certainly doesn’t lack in the looks department, yet as he stands there an uncomfortable feeling crawls up his skin that causes him to shiver as if chilled by the cold. That feeling is then followed by a quiet foreboding that resounds through his head, whispers from ancient nightmares that have followed him into reality. It’s nonsensical, completely illogical, yet he knows only one way to get it to stop.

With a sigh, he pulls the hood of his parka up and draws the strings tight around his face.

Then he walks out the door.

***

Life worked in a series of patterns, Kyle knew this fact well.

Like clockwork, events happened, but then life moved on as if nothing had ever occurred at all. Sometimes Kyle wondered that if he were to yell loud enough he could somehow change the root of the world. Like those old shows with the Opera singers where they broke all the glass, except it would be the universe itself that shattered and everyone would finally stop looking at him with blank stares and exasperation.

Would stop looking at him like Stan is looking at him now.

“I can’t believe you’re taking his side!” Kyle shouts at him, voice vibrating through the cold Colorado air.

“Dude, chill,” says Stan, used to Kyle’s outbursts and completely unfazed. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

But it was. It really was.

Yet, Kyle could do nothing but watch in shock as his best friend, the one who was always supposed to have his back, sided with his worst enemy and turned to follow a smug looking Eric Cartman down the sidewalk. Left behind. A break in the pattern. Cartman taking what was supposed to be his spot beside Stan and leaving him all on his own. The fatass already had Butters, so what the hell gave him the right to take Stan from him?

Hands tightening into fists, Kyle suddenly felt a lot like screaming.

“You don’t have to try so hard, you know,” a muffled voice says from behind him.

Kyle turns around and standing before him is Kenny. He’d almost forgotten he was even there, the boy had an act for fading into the background. His anger momentarily forgotten, he attempts to puzzle out what his normally quiet friend had just said.

“What?” He finally settles on astutely asking.

Kenny gives him a sympathetic look, a quiet intelligence to his gaze far beyond his years. Then he just shrugs and starts walking as if to follow after Stan and Cartman. However, as he goes to pass him, Kenny leans in close and softly says, “Stan would never pick Cartman over you. You’re a hard person to replace.” And there is a lilt to his cheek that lets Kyle know that he’s smiling, yet there is also something almost sad in his expression.

Then he gives another quick shrug and finally does follow after Stan and Cartman, leaving Kyle staring after him, speechless for perhaps the first time in his life.

Life was unchanging.

Life was supposed to be unchanging, yet a few muffled words and the hint of a broken smile suddenly had Kyle questioning everything. Kenny had voiced the thoughts he hadn’t even been ready to admit to himself, the old buried fear of losing his best friend to his worst enemy. Kyle had thought he hid it well, put on every air of leadership and self-confidence that would get the world to turn to him with respect. Yet, Kenny spoke as if it was old news. As if he had known all along.

He’d taken Kenny as someone who was simply quiet, took that as a fault of character that despite his childhood efforts had never improved despite some occasional muffled words and a dirty joke every once and awhile. But for the first time, Kyle wonders if maybe he himself was the one who had been oblivious, if he’d maybe been so busy yelling that he had never really been listening.

Taking a deep breath, Kyle steels himself and runs to catch up with the rest of the group. He falls back in line with Stan and eventually falls into the old familiar rhythm with Cartman, but he catches Kenny’s eye on several occasions and can no longer trust that the tilt of his smile is true.

Everything he thought he had known about Kenny McCormick had been torn down in the face of a few softly spoken words. Even so, his friend might have been something of a mystery, but Kyle was always good at solving puzzles.

He’d figure him out.

***

It’s in the middle of the night at the McCormick household, yet Kenny is wide awake in his bed, the sounds of his parents fighting resounding throughout the house.

There is a small knock on his door before Karen comes into his room, eyes glassy with unshed tears. “Kenny,” she sniffles, “I can’t sleep.”

He immediately sits up and pats the spot on the bed beside him. Without a word, she walks over and joins him, the both of them far too familiar with this routine.

Kenny wants to tell his parents to stop. Wants to look them in the eye and tell them what idiots they’re being. Wants to tell them what they’re doing to Karen, what they’re putting all of them through. Wants to protect his sister more than he’s ever wanted anything.

His hands rise up to the material covering his mouth, before they soundlessly fall back to his lap. He takes one of Karen’s hands into his instead, and she leans on his shoulder.

Karen needs a hero, and Kenny doesn’t know how to be that for her.

***

It’s early morning and Kyle’s at the bus stop, along with Stan and Cartman. He’s exceptionally agitated and keeps tapping his foot impatiently as he scans the horizon for a familiar orange blob of a boy.

“Dude, what is with you today,” Stan asks, looking at him like he’s about to spontaneously combust.

“Kahl’s probably just on his period again,” Cartman says, digging into a bag of cheesy poofs.

Kyle shoots him a glare but doesn’t dignify him with a response this time. He’s got more important things on his mind. Turning to Stan he asks, “Is Kenny normally this late?”

“I don’t know, why?”

“Because he wasn’t in school yesterday, and now he’s missing again today.”

“Wait,” Stan says with his brow scrunched in confusion, “he wasn’t in school yesterday?”

Kyle gives him a look, but before he can respond he’s interrupted by a muffled voice.

“Hey, guys.”

Kyle immediately turns on him. “Where were you yesterday?”

Kenny seems a little taken aback, but then he just shrugs and easily makes some crude remark. Kyle isn’t fooled, not missing the slightly distant look in his eyes that hints at something much deeper. The quick flicker that suggests something much darker.

But paired with the knowledge of Kenny’s tendency for dark humor, Kyle has no idea if that too is a ruse.

***

Kenny finds it in the trash, an old Halloween costume that some kid clearly didn’t want anymore. Of course, Kenny’s always been small for his age, so he knows it will fit.

He takes it home with him and late at night after everyone’s in bed, Kenny sits on his bedroom floor with a pair of scissors, green paint, and some other miscellaneous supplies he managed to dig up. He’s always been good at arts and crafts, and this isn’t really that much different. So, he works throughout the night, minutes turning into hours until he’s finally satisfied with the suit laying in front of him.

Finished, he takes off his parka and puts the costume on before sneaking across the hallway to the bathroom mirrors. When he gets there he takes one look at his reflection and freezes.

The person looking back at him is no longer Kenny. He is covered in darkness, the pale shadows of the night casting shadows across his face. He is something dark, someone who could be a hero, yet also might not be. He was an enigma, even to Kenny. A mystery.

Kenny looks into the reflective surface of the mirror and Mysterion grins back at him.

Then he turns and hurries out the door, into the night.

***

The person looking back at him is not Kenny.

It’s dark in Kyle’s room, but Kyle is not stupid. He plays dumb, pretending to not recognize who the masked hero in his bedroom really is behind the mask because he doesn’t know how to tell him. Doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with the information. The stranger may share his friend’s face behind the mask after all, but they are not one in the same.

It is an added variable in an already complex equation. A personification of the shadow that Kyle had only recently identified in Kenny’s eyes. The part of him that was always buried, a subset that existed and viewed the world in the way that Kyle viewed Eric Cartman. Saw it as something vile, something cold and evil. An outlook that was the complete opposite of the way that Kenny always seemed to view the world. And Kyle might still be trying to figure out who exactly Kenny really was, but he knew that this wasn’t it.

Mysterion is a truth, as well as a lie. Just another mask, another hood of a parka, that Kenny McCormick can hide behind.

Kyle has no idea how to tell him that he hates it.

***

They’re all playing a fantasy game with wizards and knights and Kenny decides that he’s going to be Lady McCormick because he wants to.

Much like his Mysterion costume, he spends the whole night making the costume from a dress and some materials he’d found in the trash. He doesn't mind. He’s always liked arts and crafts anyway, so he makes it work.

Once finished, the dress is pretty. He puts it on and he’s the fairest in the whole fucking land.

Kenny crosses the hall and looks in the mirror, sees that he looks delicate. Vulnerable. Exposed. The uncomfortable feeling rises up as it always does, the foreboding once again an unwelcome guest in the root of his mind.

With a sigh he takes off the dress and puts his orange parka back on, pulling up the hood and drawing the strings as tight as they can go. Only after that does he pull the dress and the wig back on overtop of it.

Then he walks out the door.

***

It keeps happening.

Kyle doesn’t understand how no one else seems to pick up on it, how one second Kenny’s there and the next he’s just fucking gone. Without a word. Without any explanation. Despite all the thinking he’s been doing in his spare time, Kyle still can’t make heads or tails of it. He’s not even sure if he wants an answer anymore, just some semblance of understanding. Something to prove to himself that he wasn’t crazy, and that, at least in some capacity, he had been right and hadn’t just been seeing things that weren’t there.

And so, several battles, Cartman being a giant asshole, and a stick being thrown into Stark’s Pond later, Kyle goes to find Kenny.

And he finds him at the train tracks.

He’s on his way to check to see if he’d gone home when he spots the blond just sitting outside his house in the snow. Sitting on his house’s side of the tracks, he’s facing Kyle as he approaches him, and he has his arms wrapped around his knees as he stares out in the direction of the rest of the town. As he draws closer, Kyle realizes that he no longer has his costume on, and kind of resembles a small blob of orange in the expanse of white snow.

When Kyle’s feet hit the edge of the tracks he stops. Kenny doesn’t look up at him, gaze focusing somewhere on the ground slightly to Kyle’s left.

“Hey, dude,” he says without looking up, voice muffled as always.

“Why’d you leave?” Kyle says, straight to business as always.

“I didn’t leave, dude.” Kenny quickly corrects, something distinctly sharp in his tone, before he seems to visibly deflate as if he doesn’t have the energy to argue. “I told you guys before and you didn’t believe me. Just forget it.”

“Kenny seriously, just tell me.”

“Kyle, I really don’t fucking feel like talking about it right now,” Kenny says with annoyance lacing his tone. ”I appreciate you coming to find me and all, but you should really just go.”

“No, I’m not leaving,” Kyle says crossing his arms and standing resolute before him. “I know you’re hiding something, dude. I might not know what, and you might not wanna tell me, but you should know that I am going to figure it out eventually, one way or another.”

For a moment, Kenny is silent. And when he finally speaks again his tone is much softer.

“Why do you care so much?”

“Maybe because you’re hard to replace.”

At his words, Kenny finally looks up and Kyle’s breath catches. His parka is still pulled tight, but in his eyes is something strikingly open and vulnerable. Within them hides a conflicting mixture of emotions, but the strongest one of all is a new one that Kyle had never seen before. Fear. It’s the most honest look he’s ever seen from him, and so he knows without a doubt that looking up at him through the fur of his parka, he finally sees _Kenny_.

It’s not long before Kenny once again looks away, but this time Kyle follows his gaze to see a yellow flower sticking out of a patch of grass uncovered by the snow. Without a thought, Kyle easily leans down and pulls it from the ground before crossing over the tracks and leaning down to hand it to him. “You don’t have to just stare at it you know.”

Kenny carefully takes it into his hands and looks down at it with something distinctly nostalgic in his gaze, “You really don’t have to stay,” he says quietly with a small shrug, not looking up from the yellow plant. “I’ll be okay.”

Kyle knows that he’s lying, so instead, he just sits beside him in the snow.

“I really respect you, you know?” Kyle says without preamble, voice taking on a gentle tone he hardly knew he was capable of. “Going out and wearing a dress just because you wanted to? That’s really brave, dude.”

Kenny immediately shakes his head. “I’m not brave, Ky.”

“Yes, you are,” Kyle tells him firmly, causing Kenny to look up at him in surprise. “I mean, just look at me. What you said at the bus stop that one time, you were right. I care too much about how people see me because I’m fucking terrified of being left behind. But you don’t care about any of that, and that’s fucking amazing to me.”

Throughout his entire speech he never once breaks eye contact with Kenny, and something in his words or his expression must strike something in him, because even after Kyle’s done talking he just continues to stare back with an expression that’s half stunned and half contemplative.

Then, like the sun emerging from the horizon, Kenny slowly reaches up and removes his hood.

“Thanks,” Kenny says with a smile, breaking the silence himself as Kyle is left speechless. “You know, for staying,” he shrugs and slightly raises the flower, “And for this I guess.”

“Uh yeah, of course.”

Kenny’s grin tilts up into a playful smirk. “Although, considering I’m a princess, I was expecting a little bit more.”

“What?” Kyle says, baffled and unable to keep up with this kid.

“The game’s still going on, right? Well, that means that I’m still one fine-ass princess, who has some demands,” Kenny turns his body to fully face Kyle and lifts a hand as if to count off with his fingers. “First off, you’re going to have to take me to a ball one day. A real one. And I’ll wear a dress and everyone will be jealous of you.”

“Oh,” Kyle says with an arch of his brow, an amused smile forming on his lips, “is that all?”

“I want flowers too. And a horse and carriage.”

Kyle can’t help but laugh. “Aren’t princesses supposed to be undemanding or something?”

“Yeah, well they also don’t have the honor of being the fairest in the land.” Kenny flutters his eyelashes and Kyle scoffs and rolls his eyes giving Kenny a playful shove. The blond falls into a fit of giggles and lightly shoves him back. When his laughter finally dies down, Kenny looks back down towards the flower still held in his hand and his smile softens. “I’m gonna hold you to it you know?” He tells him, expression turning melancholy as he twists the flower’s stem between his fingertips. “Promise me you won’t forget?”

His voice is quiet, like a subset of the wind that gets lost within the atmosphere. Kyle carefully takes the flower from his hands and leans over to tuck it behind his ear.

“Don’t worry,” he says just as quietly, “I won’t.”

***

They don’t speak about it. It is an unspoken rule between them that the one day that Kenny decided to lay himself on the line for Kyle would live on as a secret between them. Kenny still wears his hood, and Kyle never comments on it. Fourth grade is a rollercoaster of imagination and adventure anyway, and so quiet moments are far and few between.

But Kenny doesn't forget. And when he meets Kyle’s eyes from across the table, or during one of Cartman’s speeches, he knows he doesn't either.

Before they know it, fourth grade is behind them. It is an unforgettable year that will sit in their minds for as long as they live.

Over the summer leading into fifth grade, Kyle tells him about patterns.

It’s late and Kenny and Stan are over Kyle’s house for a sleepover. Kyle and Kenny are sitting alone in his backyard, Stan having gone inside to go to sleep since he was never one to take stock in talks of fate or any of that metaphysical crap. Not like Kyle who much preferred finding meaning in everything and then sharing what he learned with whoever happened to be around.

Kenny has always liked that about him.

Kyle simply talks when he feels like talking, just says whatever the hell is on his mind. And when he does, Kenny just listens. Adding in input occasionally, but perfectly content to just listen to Kyle prattle out all the thoughts he has kept up in that genius head of his.

It seems that on this night in particular, his mind was contemplating patterns.

“I think everything that happens in the world has a purpose,” he concludes, “that things have a tendency to stay the same for long periods of time, but eventually all cycles are bound to come to an end. And when they do, it’s our job to use what we learned to make new ones. Better ones.”

“But what if they don’t stop?” Kenny asks quietly.

Kyle thinks about this for a moment, before something resembling distaste crosses his expression. His gaze hardens and Kenny can see the fire within, the bright spark of passion that could have turned the world itself into dust. “Then you just keep fucking fighting them until they do.”

And Kenny thinks he might fall a little bit in love that night, but he doesn't tell anybody that.

***

A few days later, Kyle’s coming back from Ike’s room. He told Kenny to wait while he went got the rest of his video games from his brother, Ike might only be six, but already he’s made a habit of stealing his shit.

The minute he re-enters his room, he nearly drops everything he’s holding in surprise. Kenny’s sitting on his floor in the same place he had been, but the hood of his parka is suddenly resting around his shoulders and Kyle is left speechless at the sight of the unobstructed face of Kenny McCormick.

“Oh,” Kyle says a little breathlessly, before coughing in an attempt to hide it.

“Dude, could you uh,” Kenny lightly laughs, the sound unmuffled and almost musical in quality, and makes a telling gesture towards the door.

“Right, shit, sorry.” Kyle quickly turns to shut his door, but his hand lingers on the handle a bit too long as he attempts to disguise his mini-crisis. There’s a weird feeling mixing around in his gut that he has absolutely no idea how to deal with. Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath before finally turning again.

Kenny’s gaze is focused on a spot on his floor and Kyle picks up on the way he’s sitting on his hands. Kenny’s always been smaller than the rest of them, but with the way he’s practically curing into himself Kyle is hit with how unbearably small he looks. And with that, he realizes that he’s probably making an ass of himself.

“So, what did you wanna play?” Kyle says as nonchalantly as he can as he plops down on the floor beside him. He starts reading off titles as he flips through the stack, and before he knows it Kenny is scooting over and looking over his shoulder.

When Kyle turns his head to look at him, he meets his eyes and his breath catches. Kenny’s eyes are glistening in a way he’s never seen before, smile wide in a way he’s never had the chance to know.

He looks _happy_.

And that day Kyle discovers that Kenny McCormick is kind of beautiful, but he doesn't tell anybody that.

***

Kenny takes what he learns and builds from it. Keeps the feeling close to him and constructs himself a new world. Looks towards a future where things have the ability to change.

During the day Kenny hides himself away in his parka as he had always done.

During most nights, he puts on the mask and costume and pretends to be the brave hero he always wanted to be.

In Kyle’s room, when it’s just the two of them, Kenny doesn’t wear his mask or his hood.

Kyle never speaks of it, not to the guys or anyone, and Kenny’s thankful for it. He doesn’t know how to explain it after all. Kyle just makes him feel safe, as if he had nothing to hide from.

As if maybe he never did.

It’s a small thing, but it helps Kenny more than Kyle could ever hope to understand.

***

Life works in a series of patterns. But sometimes there’s a shift, a series or single event that changes a person’s attitude, or how they see things.

Kyle had always been concerned that if he faded into the background then people might stop hearing him. If he stepped away from his course then people might stop listening.

Kenny showed him that things could be different. That he had been wrong.

They’re meeting up to go to the movies. Kyle is running late because his mom made him do the dishes before he was allowed to leave, so the other three are already waiting by the time he gets there.

Kenny’s eyes light up the minute he sees him and, even if he can’t see his mouth, Kyle knows that he’s smiling.

“Sorry, I’m late,” Kyle says as he joins them.

“Fucking finally, what’d you have to clean the sand out of your vagina?” Cartman says, rolling his eyes and starting to walk in the direction of the theater without another word.

“Hey dude,” Stan greets him with a smile before following after Cartman.

Kyle hangs back, and Kenny takes his place beside him.

“Hey, Ky.”

“Hey,” Kyle says unable to stop his dumb smile, “were you guys waiting long?”

Kenny rolls his eyes, “Cartman got here like five minutes ago, dude. He’s just being an asshole.”

“What fucking else is new.”

Kenny giggles and they fall into a comfortable silence as they trail behind the other two.

It isn’t long before Stan slows his pace to join Kyle on his other side while Cartman rolls his eyes and waits for them from up ahead.

When Kyle turns his head and meets Kenny’s eyes the blond offers him a knowing look and he winks.

***

It’s the first day of sixth grade.

Kenny is standing in the bathroom before school, looking in the mirror. He looks at his unruly blond hair, blue eyes, and skin that’s pale from infrequent exposure to the sun. Without a thought, he makes a stupid face in the mirror and then brings a hand up to his lips to muffle his giggles.

Then, with his hood still resting on his shoulders, he walks out the door.


	8. The Hero

Butters Stotch knew that there were two types of people in the world.

It was a conclusion based on the knowledge that people could not be defined in simple terms of good or evil, but in a measure of whether they were happy or unhappy. A measure of whether they were happy enough to be good, or unhappy enough to be bad.

Some people…just never got the chance to be good. But they could be. Everyone had the potential. All they needed was a different outlook on things, the strength to focus on the bright side when everything seemed to be awful. A chaotic force to twist everything that they thought they knew into a new light.

Butters’ gaze focuses on the old tinfoil helmet that’s peeking out from under his bed. He tones out his father’s yelling and wonders if the next time the fellas wanted to play superheroes would be the time that they finally figured out the secret of his character. The character arc that he had planned from the start.

A supervillain who secretly just wanted to do good.

“Butters, you’re grounded!”

He was just waiting for someone to believe that he could be.

***

There were very few people in the world that Butters didn’t like. A place on that list was reserved for people who were gifted every single good thing and looked at it all like it was nothing. Threw it away like it was yesterday’s trash.

People like Wendy, and sometimes even Kyle on occasion.

But where Kyle seemed to be happy right where he was most of the time, Wendy seemed to view everything in her life as if nothing was ever good enough. Had the world in the palm of her hand and yet failed to see what she had. Was handed every happiness and yet was never satisfied.

It was a real shame. Specially’ for poor Stan who deserved so much more than she gave him. Deserved more than to be broken up with over and over and over again.

“What good will changing the world do if you’re gonna just end up bein’ all alone in it?” Butters says to Eric one day while he’s over his house, voice only slightly bitter.

Cartman stops what he’s doing and for a moment he just frowns at the poorly constructed skate-ramp he’d been working on, a look crossing his face that’s more than a little bothered. “Oh my god Butters, why don’t you just go make out with Stan or something?”

Why didn’t he-

Oh.

_Oh, hamburgers._

***

They’re all gathered around Kyle’s locker before class, as they’ve grown accustomed to doing, while he gets all his books together. His locker is almost meticulously clean, unlike Butters’ own which is covered in Hello Kitty stickers and little notes he writes to himself. All Kyle has in his besides books is a single picture of himself standing between Kenny and Stan. Butters isn’t real sure where it was taken because the background looks unfamiliar, but Kenny isn’t wearing his hood in it so it had to have been taken only earlier this year.

Sometimes he notices Eric’s gaze trail up to it with something that might be hurt lining his eyes. Butters always thinks of asking why he’s not in the picture with them, but it’s actually a real hard thing to ask. So, he doesn’t.

Today though, Cartman isn’t looking at the picture. Instead, he’s going on about the grand opening of his backyard skatepark, a failure of a creation with the current primary focus being to try to get kids stupid enough to go on it to see how long it would last until it collapsed.

“It’s going to be so fucking funny,” Eric concludes.

Kyle pointedly rolls his eyes before he goes back to flipping through his notebook, “That’s stupid as shit, fatass.”

Like a switch Cartman’s entire demeanor changes, expression falling, and posture stiffening. “Well who said that you were invited?!”

Kyle scoffs without even looking up. “It’s invitation only now?”

“It’s always fucking been invitation only, Kahl!” He snaps, although Butters knows it’s a lie. “And stupid ginger Jews aren’t allowed at my skatepark!”

“Whatever,” Kyle says putting the notebook back into his locker before closing it. “Not like I wanted to go anyway.”

“Dude, I’m not going if Kyle can’t go,” Stan says immediately, looking at Cartman with dark blue eyes that do weird things to Butters’ stomach.

“Well fine, Kinny-”

“Nuh-uh,” Kenny says, briefly glancing over at Kyle. “Not a chance, dude.”

“Fine! Screw you guys! I’m gonna have the best skatepark party ever, and you’re all going to be so pissed you didn’t get to go.”

Then with that, Cartman stomps off and Butters follows after him without a word.

***

“Who does he fucking think he is anyway,” Cartman is saying to Butters several hours after the incident and still very much not over it. “But Kinny and Stan will probably totally end up ditching Kyle in the end, I mean why wouldn’t they?”

They’re on their way home from school and Butters is nodding along and doing all he can to be agreeable and understanding when he spots a very certain boy sitting alone on the curb. His steps come to a sudden halt without him even telling them to.

Havin’ a crush was real difficult sometimes.

“I’ll uh see ya at your house later, alright Eric?”

“Yeah,” Cartman mutters after a moment's pause, “whatever.”

Butters offers him a small wave and he sure does look pretty down, but Stan looked real down too and he’d see Eric later that night anyway.

And so putting on his best smile, Butters walks over to the other boy.

“Mind if I sit with ya?”

Stan looks up and offers a small shrug. Butters takes it as a yes and plops down next to him on the curb. “There a reason you’re lookin’ so down?” He asks.

Stan sighs, “Wendy.” He ends it there but to anyone who knows him, it’s enough of an explanation.

“Well gee, there sure are tons of other people out there, Stan.” He pauses, worrying his lip between his teeth, “Some may be closer than ya think.”

“I don’t want other people,” Stan says softly, “I want her.”

He looks real sad and Butters hates it. It’s probably real stupid of him, but sometimes Butters daydreams about being the only one who could honestly make him happy. To be the one to make him smile and cause his eyes to light up and to help him see that the world wasn’t quite as dull as he seemed to think that it was.

But they were only daydreams. Fantasies. But gee, it’d sure make him real happy if they could come true. Of course, the easiest way to help it along would be to help move Wendy out of the picture. To tell Stan that it wasn’t ever going to work, and that he should really just move on.

Yet, Butters couldn’t do it.

“I’m sure she’ll come around,” he says quietly instead.

That little smile that Butters loved so much brightened up Stan’s face, giving him a deeply bittersweet feeling. Wendy Testaburger really was one lucky girl. It was a shame that she was always looking too far in the distance to see what she already had right in front of her.

“You really think so?”

“She always seems to, don’t she?” Butters lowers his voice and directs his gaze to the pavement. “You’re a real good guy, Stan.”

“Thanks, dude. I-”

“Hey, Stan!”

They both look over to see Kyle waving from down the street, Kenny at his side as usual. At the sight Stan immediately rises to his feet, stretching as he stands.

“I’ll see you later, Butters,” he says with a quick smile before he’s hurrying down the street to join the other two.

Butters sighs and kicks at the street with the edge of his shoe.

Stupid Kyle.

***

“This is all Kahl’s fault.”

It had been about a half an hour since either of them had spoken, so Eric’s sudden muttered words made Butters look to him in surprise.

“What’s his fault?”

“Fucking this!” Eric gestures to his empty backyard and Butters understands. “He has to be the reason no one showed up. Fucking Jew.”

“Well, you could try apologizin’.”

“No fucking way.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t.” he shakes his head and stones his expression. “It’s just the way I live. I don’t let no asshole tell me what I can and can’t do, and I do whatever the hell I feel like.”

Butters thinks that’s an awful lonely sounding sentiment. But there’s also something thrilling about it. A nuance of the rebellion that Butters had admired in Eric from the moment he met him.

There’s a part of him that roars to life at the words. A part of him that laughs maniacally and says, _Yes, that’s the best idea I’ve ever heard._

Then again there’s the much more familiar part of Butters that wants to comfort Eric. Wants to call out the lie and say that it’s an awful and untrue way to live your life.

Butters’ screws up his nose a little in confusion. “Well then what are you gonna do?”

Cartman’s eyes narrow into harsh little lines. “I’m going to destroy Kahl by taking away everything he cares about.”

Butters knows that what he says is a lie. He’s been friends with Cartman for an awfully long time, and he knows an empty threat when he hears one. Still, something in his words strikes something in him. Strengthens the part that had praised Cartman’s rebellious nature.

Kyle.

Kyle who was best friends with Stan. Kyle who spent time with him and never took the time to make sure he was always happy. Kyle who called Stan away from him.

Kyle, gone.

Mindless destruction.

_Chaos._

“No,” Butters shakes himself out of it. Positive. Think positive. “You’re gonna be real sorry, Eric! I’m not gonna just go ahead and let ya do this,” he says shakily but his heart isn’t in it as it usually is. The image of him taking Kyle’s place suddenly a too real temptation.

“Good luck with trying to stop me,” Cartman says tone quiet, without any real anger or fire behind it. As if he’s already lost.

It’s a tone Butters is familiar with. He knows all it would take is a few comforting words to snap Eric out of it and then all would be fine. But this time Butters isn’t sure if he wants to. Can’t think of words that normally came so easily to him. 

So instead, without a word he gets up and heads home, leaving Eric Cartman alone in his backyard.

***

The next day Eric doesn’t show up at school.

Butters eyes his empty desk in class with a guilty feeling churning uncomfortably in his gut. Still, he knows that Eric’s never exactly been shy about skipping school, so it’s probably just a coincidence. He probably had nothing to do with it.

He decides to go over his house after school anyway. Just to check up on him.

At least that is his plan up until the final bell rings and he’s walking down the hallway past Kyle’s locker only to hear the redhead muttering to himself.

“This has to be his doing,” he hears him say, “fucking empty threats and blackmail.”

It seemed whatever Cartman was planning was already starting.

“Heya Kyle?” Butters sidles up next to him somewhat nervously. “Is there somethin’ botherin’ ya?”

Kyle looks over at him in surprise, clearly too wrapped up in his own head to have heard him approach. Then he just shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair with a sigh. “I just keep getting these stupid ass texts and notes stuck on my locker, and it’s really starting to piss me off.”

Butters knows he should be worried, but instead he’s stricken by a strong sense of curiosity. It’s an unusual reaction on his part, but he tries not to think about it.

“Well gee, can I see?” He says, fiddling with his hands a bit. “Maybe I can help ya out?”

“I don’t need your help, Butters!” Kyle snaps. Butters instantly recoils and Kyle once again just runs a hand through his hair with a tired sigh. “Look, I appreciate it, but I’m fine on my own,” he crosses his arms and stiffens his shoulders, “I can handle things myself.”

And whether that was the truth or his pride talking, Butters honestly couldn’t tell.

***

After his encounter with Kyle, instead of going to Eric’s house like he had originally planned, Butters finds his feet leading him in a different direction.

Life is awfully confusing, and he needs advice.

“Hiya, Dougie.”

Dougie looks up at him from the spot on the bleachers where he normally sits and does his homework after school. “Hey Butters, what can I do for you?”

And so Butters sits down and tells him. Tells him about his not so small crush on Stan, and his feelings about Wendy and Kyle, and most importantly about Eric’s plan.

“You should tell them,” Dougie says when Butters eventually stops talking. “About your friend Eric’s plans, I mean.”

Butters frowns, a small downward pull of his lips. “He’s not really gonna go through with it though.”

“Well duh,” Dougie says blankly as if it’s obvious, “but your friends seem super attached to Kyle, so telling them he’s in danger might be your ticket in. It’s like they say in the movies, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, or something.”

Fidgeting his hands, Butters looks away from his friend and focuses on the empty seat of the bleacher in front of him. It’s not that he didn’t trust his old sidekick, but something about doing what he said didn’t sit right with him.

But he’d think about it.

***

Sometimes his feet take him to strange places.

Butters takes in the old playground and the old park bench that he used to sit at every day after school with a bittersweet feeling, tears pooling in his eyes without really knowing why. It looks the same as he remembers it, maybe a bit more rust on the playset, maybe different faces playing tag across the grass and the snow, but in a way it’s timeless. It’s a peaceful place. A sanctuary.

He’s not sure why he came here.

Still, sitting on the park bench he spots a familiar blob of orange and so he makes his way over.

“Heya, Kenny.”

The blond looks up with a small smile, yet Butters’ eyes go wide at the sight of a large bruise forming on his left cheek. Without a thought, Butters automatically goes to look at his injury and Kenny flinches back.

“Gee sorry I didn’t-”

“No, it’s fine, sorry,” Kenny’s smile returns and he shrugs. “Just a reflex.”

Butters nods and gives him space, backing away and sitting down on the bench beside him.

“Ya get in a fight?”

Kenny chuckles, the sound lacking any humor. “Something like that.”

Butters takes in his blond hair and fair skin contrasting the color of the bruise, as well as the lightness of his eyes which didn’t really ever match his dark humor. Kenny was always awfully complicated. Butters never knew quite what to say to him, specially’ since he was so quiet most of the time.

So, even if only to fill the silence, he says the first thing on his mind. He’d always been pretty good with lecturin’ after all, maybe he could help.

“You shouldn’t be gettin’ into fights, Kenny.”

“Yeah,” Kenny shrugs and continues looking out at the horizon, “I know.”

“Nothin’s ever become better by fightin’” Butters continues, not discouraged in the slightest. “It don’t ever solve nothin’, and it ain’t gonna change anything.”

Yet, despite their purpose, for some reason his words seem to have an opposite effect on the blond, and Kenny’s expression falls.

 _Oh gee_ , Butters thinks worrying his lip, here he’d just gone ahead and made things worse. He fumbles around in his head for a change of subject, maybe Kenny would do better with a distraction.

“Uh, Kyle sure seemed super angry bout’ somethin’ earlier.”

As he’d hoped, Kenny’s expression brightens at the mention of Kyle and he laughs, “Yeah? Why am I not surprised?”

“I offered to help but he got to hollering at me real fast.”

Kenny’s eyes immediately flicker to understanding. “Don’t take it personally, Leo. Ky doesn’t like it when people suggest that he can’t handle things on his own.”

“But I thought he wanted people to help im’?” Butters asks, brows scrunching in confusion. Usually, whenever people didn’t follow along with Kyle’s plans he’d get super sore about it.

“He does,” Kenny shrugs, “but you’ve gotta wait for him to come to you.”

“Kenny!”

As if on cue there’s suddenly a redhead hurrying across the park, and Butters picks up on the way that Kenny’s entire expression lights up at the sight of him. Within moments, Kyle’s eyes seem to lock onto the blond’s injury, and his expression turns worried as he crosses the final few steps between them.

Kyle leans down and touches the injury without thinking, inspecting it. Kenny doesn’t so much as move, allowing Kyle to do whatever he wants as he watches him with the most open expression Butters has ever seen him wear, something distinctly fond and happy. Butters feels strangely uncomfortable watching the whole scene, as if he’s witnessing something private between them that he was never meant to see.

When Kyle eventually looks up his eyes are frighteningly bright, and Butters can’t help but slightly recoil back in fear, even if his anger’s not directed at him.

“Who?” Is all he says, voice like stone.

“It’s no one, Ky,” Kenny says with a soft smile, doing nothing to remove the hand that’s still on his jaw.

“Kenny…”

“Seriously, it’s okay.”

Kyle doesn’t look convinced, still, he moves away to sit down next to him. Butters watches as he leans over and whispers something in his ear which causes Kenny to giggle. Kyle grins, satisfied with his reaction.

Then, as if just now noticing him sitting there awkwardly, Kyle looks over at Butters with a smile, none of his earlier anger present. “Oh hey, Butters.”

Kenny looks over at him too, shooting him a wide smile, and Butters notices that his eyes are no longer so empty.

The guilty feeling returns in Butters gut, although this time for a different reason than earlier as he smiles back. It’d been silly to ever be jealous of Kyle over Stan. Hell, if Butters could get Stan to look at him in a fraction of the way that Kenny and Kyle looked at each other then that would really be something. He wasn’t sure how he had missed this before, then again maybe he’d always just been too busy looking in different directions.

Either way...

Maybe Dougie was right.

Butters fiddles with his hands again before he steels himself.

It would be worth it. It had to be.

“Heya, fellas? I think there’s somethin’ you should hear.”

***

Two hours later Butters is standing in front of Cartman’s front door with Kenny right beside him.

Err…next to Mysterion? Kenny’d stopped by his house to change into his costume, and then had allowed Butters to run into his own house to grab his too. Butters didn’t really understand why it was necessary, but he supposed having the helmet on his head did make him feel a bit more comfortable doing this.

Of course, it’d been a tough fight to get Kyle to agree to go with Stan to his house once he’d shown up. Overall, just a lot of back and forths and meaningful looks between the three of them that Butters really didn’t understand. The final verdict being that they actually didn’t want Kyle to end up being put in jail for murder because then they’d have to figure out a way to bust him out. Which, apparently, seemed to appease the redhead. Somewhat.

Truthfully, Butters was starting to get a real bad headache.

It was dark out, the sun having faded on the horizon, and he watches as Mysterion looks up at the second story before looking back at Butters.

“Okay, so I’ll climb up to his window and then you sneak in through the back and go up to his room. That way we’ll have him trapped.”

Butters wasn’t really getting it. “Gee, wouldn’t it be easier to knock?”

Mysterion just stares at him. “No.”

“Sure it is, see?” He immediately reaches over and firmly knocks on the door. “Easy.”

“Listen,” Mysterion says with a very exhausted sounding sigh, “Butters-”

Of course, whatever he was about to say was swiftly cut off by the front door being thrown open to reveal a very disgruntled looking Eric Cartman.

“Aye! What the hell-” he curses and then freezes when he realizes just who’s standing at his door. “Butters? Kinny?” A sly smile slides across his features as he leans against the doorframe. “You two finally decide to ditch the other losers? About fucking time.”

Shaking his head, Mysterion steps forward, straight to business. “Whatever you have planned for Kyle, you’re going to put a stop to it. Now.”

“Of course this is about the fucking Jew,” Cartman says, gaze narrowing and posture stiffening as he straightens out and crosses his arms.

“Yeah, it’s about Kyle. So what?’

“What do you fucking think, Kinny?!” Cartman snaps, causing Butters to take a step back even as Mysterion stands firm. “You don’t even want to do anything cool anymore because you’re too busy trailing after Kahl like a fucking pussy-ass-bitch!”

His words hang in the air between them, and Butters is left speechless. Still, Kenny apparently knows exactly what to say as he takes another step forward.

“As if you didn’t do the same thing to me with Butters.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Cartman looks honestly clueless, and Mysterion slightly growls and shakes his head.

“Forget it, I’m done with this. You got your warning, now I’m going the fuck home,” he says before he swiftly turning and beginning to walk away.

“Yeah, well fuck you too, Kinny!” Cartman yells after him.

And then it’s just the two of them.

Butters is at a loss for words, knowing the end of a friendship when he sees one and not having any idea what to say.

Was this his fault?

After a few moments, Cartman breaks the silence for him. “Just fucking go already,” he mumbles without really any bite.

“I’m real sorry, Eric”

And then Butters turns and runs after Kenny.

***

The thing about lessons is that they’re usually not learned until it’s too late.

He’d seen a chance to go for what he wanted and he’d taken it. Had listened to someone else’s advice and had ignored the wrongness he had felt. Had found himself torn between what his heart wanted and what his heart knew to be true. He had gone ahead and done everything to finally be happy. To give himself the chance to be noticed and to make Stan happy and to be good and-

Here he’d never felt more unhappy in his life.

“Hey Butters, you wanna play with us?”

He looks over from his Hello Kitty sticker-covered locker to see Stan, Kyle, and Kenny walking over to him, Kyle with a basketball in his hand.

“You’re invitin’ me?”

“Yeah sure,” Kyle shrugs, “you can take Cartman’s spot on Stan’s team.”

Butters looks over at Stan and he smiles at him, wide and beautiful.

It’s everything he thought he ever wanted, and yet…

_And yet._

In his heart, he knows it wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

***

The first step of being strong, he learns, is acting on what feels right in his heart. After all, the heart is a troubling little organ, but very seldom led a person astray as long as they were willing to listen to it hard enough.

And so, after politely refusing to play basketball even with as much as he might have wanted to, he decides to go straight to the source.

“Wendy,” he says as he walks up to her at her locker, “why do ya keep on using Stan?”

She looks over at him, clearly surprised. Although it doesn’t take long for his words to sink in and for her to turn to him with a deep sigh. “I’m not using him, Butters.”

Butters looks down and shuffles his feet a bit, suddenly feeling stupid for a reason he can’t discern. “You keep breaking his heart, like ya don’t even care bout’ him at all.”

Without a word, Wendy lightly touches his arm to get his attention before she steps out of the way of her locker so that he can look inside. Butters complies, and what he sees leaves him stunned.

As it turns out, her locker is completely covered with pictures of her and Stan. Along with a crazy amount of heart stickers that Butters is quite frankly jealous of.

“Then why?” He chokes.

“I don’t know Butters,” she says softly with a sad little smile, “I just don’t know.”

He puzzles over her words for a moment before it finally clicks.

A consistent pull in two different directions. One a grasp of a hand, the other the call of the world. He’d oversimplified the world to such a point that he’d been missing the important details.

But now he remembers a certain park bench and small kids who deserved better than the childhood he’d had when he was young. Remembers happening across a small girl he had almost forgotten in his years of dislike. Wide eyes and empty hands, misunderstanding the fundamental rule of the universe.

Or at least Butters’ young and naive understanding of it. He looks to her locker once more and looks at the photographs there. Looks at Stan’s smiling face and Wendy’s grin which is as true and real as they come. He’d gotten so caught up in his own wants, his own selfish dreams, that he’d abandoned what had once been his solid truth. What he had known more than anything.

_There are only two types of people in the world._

Maybe he and Wendy had more in common than he’d thought.

“Heya, Wendy?” He looks over at her in hesitation and she gives him an encouraging smile. “I was actually hopin’ you could help me with somethin’.”

***

Wendy Testaburger, as Butters learns, is some sort of genius.

He watches as she types away at her laptop, flipping through pages of social media and somehow managing to hack into Cartman’s account to post an apology for the way he’d been acting. Butters makes sure to make it a very specific apology so that the other fellas would believe it no matter what, even if Eric attempted to deny it to the very end.

When they’re done, Wendy offers to walk Butters home.

“Ya really think it will be enough?” Butters asks as they walk.

Wendy laughs, “What? A heartfelt apology from Eric Cartman? In front of everyone online? I think finding _Slash_ and having them perform under a banner saying _I’m Sorry_ , wouldn’t even have quite the same impact.”

Butters nods in agreement and the two continue to walk in a companionable silence. At least, it does before Wendy decides to break it not moments later.

“I know you like, Stan,” she says easily, without preamble.

Butters nearly loses his balance. The words literally the last thing he would ever expect. “You do?”

“It’s not exactly hard to figure out,” she says with a shrug.

Not really knowing what to say, Butters settles on quietly asking the most important thing, “Are you gonna tell him?”

To his immediate surprise, she lightly laughs before resting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You can tell him yourself one day, when you’re ready.”

“But why would ya…?”

Without removing her hand she stops walking, bringing him to a stop alongside her. Then, she just smiles at him, “I want him to be happy too, Butters.” She winks, “You were the one that helped me realize that.”

Butters may not fully understand what she means, but the next day when it’s announced that she and Stan are back together he feels none of the jealousy that once plagued him.

Instead, he wishes them the best.

***

“Hey, Eric.”

It had been four days since Butters had spoken to Eric, and so it wasn’t all that surprising that Cartman instantly looks up from the spot he’d been sitting in his own backyard, startled. But he recovers fairly quickly. Then, with a shake of his head, he scoffs and mutters, “I’ll be fucking sorry, alright.”

Butters sidles up next to him, “Well, are ya?”

He shoots him a glare in response before looking back down and pouting. Shuffling his feet like an angry toddler. “I wasn’t actually going to kill, Kahl,” he finally settles on mumbling.

Butters smiles. “Of course you wouldn’t of. Cause’ you care about im’, just like you care bout’ all your friends, even if you’re real awful at showin’ it.”

Cartman rolls his eyes, “Nice speech, you talk to my fucking mom or something?”

“No, I can just tell,” Butters says as gently as he can. And when Eric finally looks up from the ground with eyes that are a little less defensive, Butters finds himself chuckling, “Gee, I guess I’m a pretty useless supervillain, after all.”

“No shit…” Eric pauses, before the edge of his lip curls up in something that may be reminiscent of an actual smile, “but I think you make a pretty alright hero.”

The words settle into Butters' head, sink into his skin and bring tears to his eyes without his control. 

_A hero._

Oh gee. 

“So...this means we can be friends again?”

Cartman snorts and looks away as he nonchalantly holds out a hand. “This means you’re gonna have to stop letting people walk all over you, because I’m not being best friends with a fucking pussy,” he mutters.

Butters smiles and takes his hand into his own, giving it a firm shake.

“Sure,” he says, “I’ll get to workin’ on it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I just want to apologize for getting this out so late. I was working on a few other things and in truth this chapter kind of kicked my ass. I’m talking like three complete rewrites, and an entire reworking of Butters’ part in my original outline. He just… turned out to be a very complicated boy.


	9. The Seasons

Stan has his first real kiss the summer before seventh grade.

That’s not to say that he hadn’t been kissed before, but they had been nothing more than chaste pecks. Moments in his childhood when Wendy would lean in and brush her lips against his for a brief heart-stopping moment before he ended up spilling his lunch half on her and half on the ground below them. Moments that, even when the urge to vomit wasn’t present, were quick and simple. Lean in, pull back, smile, and move on.

This time is different.

This is two pairs of lips formally meeting for the first time. A tilt of her head and the smooth silk of her hair gliding between his fingers. This is a lingering press after lingering press, broken only to momentarily regain breath before diving right back in. This is the feel of her arms wrapping around his neck and the pounding of her chest moving in time with his.

When they at last break apart he looks at Wendy, shining eyes and hair mussed by the combination of his fingers and the warm summer breeze moving through the air. Her smile is soft as she settles back into her spot beside him and leans her head on his shoulder.

Even after they break up at the start of fall he swears he can still taste her on his lips.

***

The path up to Kyle’s front door is dusted with leaves. Stan’s feet brush them aside as he drags them up the path, crunching sounds resounding with his every step. He slowly brings up his hand and knocks on the door, giving a great sigh as he waits for someone to answer.

Life really sucked sometimes.

He doesn’t have to wait long, a beat or two passing before the door swings open to reveal Kyle. His best friend giving him one long look before he arches his brow. “Dude,” he says, “you look like shit.”

Stan goes back to looking at his feet, shuffling them and kicking a dead leaf with the toe of his shoe. “Wendy broke up with me,” he tells him, tone quiet. 

Kyle runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “Again?” He asks, moving to the side so that Stan can enter his house, “What was it this time?”

But Stan only shrugs. It's not like it mattered.

She was gone.

He hears Kyle’s tired sigh as he closes the front door. Of course, before any other words can be exchanged between them, Kenny walks out from the kitchen with a bag of chips in hand. And it's not like the sight of him is surprising in any way. It was a common occurrence at this point. An expectancy. He never asked, but Kyle and Kenny had somewhere down the line become something of a package deal. If there was Kyle, then Kenny was probably close by, and vice versa. Just a fact a life.

He and Wendy had been like that once.

Spotting Stan, Kenny comes to a halt and gives him a very obvious once-over. “Dude,” he remarks, “you look like shit.”

With a groan, Stan flops down and sprawls out across the entire sofa. Distantly, through the haze of his overbearing exhaustion with life, he's aware of Kenny turning to Kyle with a questioning look. “What’s wrong with him?”

“The usual,” Kyle answers with a shrug. “Wendy broke up with him.”

With a nod, Kenny plops down in the armchair and fixes him with a look. “That sucks, dude. You wanna talk about it?”

“What’s there to say?” Stan says throwing his head back to look at the ceiling. “It sucks. Life sucks.”

From his view of Kyle’s shitty ceiling, Kyle’s face comes into view as he prods at him with his hand, “Dude, move your feet.”

“But Kyle...” he whines, “I’m grieving.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Well, my lap’s always open,” Kenny says without missing a beat, patting his lap from his spot in the armchair. Kyle rolls his eyes, but Stan notices the slight flush to his cheeks. Kenny must notice it too because he starts giggling, and Stan, as usual, is impressed with the blond’s ability to get away with messing with Kyle. Hell, even he himself would probably get punched, and he had super best friend status to back him up.

In the end, Kyle ends up settling down on the floor in front of Kenny’s feet. Of course, this puts him in prime attack territory for Kenny to keep leaning forward to play with his hair, although Kyle agily bats his hands away every time. Not that this discourages the blond in the least.

“Guys, how do I get her back?”

“Just play with her a bit,” Kenny says, putting up his two fingers and flicking his tongue through to demonstrate his point.

Kyle elbows his legs. “Don’t listen to Kenny. You just need to talk to her, dude.” He shrugs, “Maybe try just being her friend for a while.”

“Her friend?”

“Yes, Stan. If you can’t work as friends how the hell are you supposed to know how to work in a relationship? You’ve never had that with Wendy.” He crosses his arms, “Relationships are about more than holding hands and making out, you know.”

He’s waiting for Kenny to add something about sex, but to his surprise, the blond stays silent.

Huh weird. So, even Kenny agreed? Then again, as two people who had never had a serious relationship in their life, Stan isn’t too sure that their advice was to be completely trusted. After all, as much as he loved spending time with Wendy, he couldn’t imagine being anything but her boyfriend. Listening to her talk about other guys. Giving her relationship advice towards other people. No way.

He should probably get a second opinion.

***

Butters is walking along the edge of the curb, arms out for balance and tongue peeking from beyond his lips in concentration as he listens to Stan talk.

“Well,” Butters says when Stan finishes telling him what happened, “Do ya really love her?”

The question catches Stan off guard and for a startling moment he can’t answer. It’s completely illogical, because here he’s known he’s been in love with Wendy since he was seven, and yet, looking at Butters while he’s doing his stupidly innocent little balance act makes the words freeze on the tip of his tongue. Butters reaches the end of his piece of curb and jumps off, twirling around to face Stan as he walks backwards, arms held behind his back. “Well, do ya?”

Stan thinks hard, really he does. Wendy. Wendy with her soft hair, and dazzling smile. Wendy whose grace was almost equal to the easy motions of the blond in front of him, with the way he seemed to glide and hop around as if bouncing to his own little tune of positivity.

Butters slightly inclines his head in question, looking up at him through blond lashes tinged with sunlight.

Right. Wendy.

“I uh… yeah,” Stan says, finally shaking himself out of it. “Yeah, I do.”

Butters smiles, a sad yet sweet tilt of the lips, and turns around to look up at the blue sky. His steps slow to match Stan’s stride, and Stan can’t help but notice the way the sunlight lights up the contours of his face. “Well then I wouldn’t worry about it, Stan. Cause when ya really love someone that feelin’ don’t just go away.” He looks back down at him, eyes glimmering pools of blue. “And I know she loves ya too.”

“Really?” Stan chokes.

“Sure do.”

Looking back down at the sidewalk and away from Butters, Stan runs a hand through his hair with a sigh. “Then what am I supposed to do?”

Butters hums, “Gee well I don’t know too much bout’ relationships. But maybe Kyle and Kenny could help ya out.”

Stan’s eyes narrow in confusion. With a shake of his head, he gives Butters a disbelieving look.

“You do realize that neither of them has had a serious relationship in their life?”

Butters nods and gives him a little encouraging smile. The blond might not be one to roll his eyes, but Stan was well aware that the almost pitying stare he was giving him was pretty much the same thing. Kyle and Kenny. His two best friends. His best friends who sat a little too close together sometimes, who seemed to gravitate around one another. Who had silent conversations that not even Stan himself could follow. Who flirted with each other endlessly but now it just seemed common because they-

Because they had each been pining for years.

Oh.

Stan swallows, feeling like the biggest moron. “Maybe I should...try being friends with her then?”

With a small shrug, Butters grabs his hand, a soft brush of fingers and warmth before he pulls it away just as quickly. “I think ya just need to show her that ya care.”

***

The first snowfall of winter is harsh and brutal. The wind rages from outside as Stan sits across from Kyle and Kenny at Tweek Bros. They’d just gotten settled in, and he and Kyle are taking off their snow soaked coats while Kenny removes his hood and shakes out a bit of water that had managed to sneak into his hair.

Kyle looks over at him and laughs, reaching over and attempting to fix the half damp and half sticking up golden mop on his head.

Stan shakes his head with an amused smile as he watches them. Sometimes he questions how he had ever missed something so glaringly obvious. He’d probably just spent too much time around them. After all, it had happened so naturally and gradually that until he took a step back and really looked, he’d just mistaken it for a really close friendship. Of course, it was much more than that.

Satisfied with his work, Kyle retracts his hand and slides from his seat. “I’ll order.” So, Stan tells him what he wants and hands him a five, Kyle then takes it and turns to Kenny. “You want anything, Ken?”

Kenny shakes his head no, and Kyle nods, unsurprised. Even Stan knew that Kenny had never been one to spend what little money he had on expensive drinks, or accept handouts for that matter. Kyle was probably just being polite by asking.

After Kyle walks up to the counter, Stan takes some time to look around the coffee shop. It’s moderately busy, with a few familiar faces, but there’s one very familiar one that stops his heart and speeds up his pulse. “Oh my God, Kenny,” he hurriedly whispers, leaning in closer to him but not tearing his eyes away from the perfect girl that still hadn’t noticed him. “It’s Wendy. Dude, what should I do?”

He’s met with silence.

Stan looks over at his unresponsive friend and sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Seriously, dude?”

“Huh?” The blond says eloquently, not removing his gaze from the redhead leaning on the counter, waiting for their order.

Stan takes a lollipop that Butters had given him from his coat pocket and promptly throws it across the table at Kenny. It hits him square on the cheek and Kenny turns to him with a glare. “What the fuck, dude?” He says looking down at the offending piece of candy in bafflement.

“Dude, you’re staring again.”

Kenny blinks at him. “No, I wasn’t.”

“You weren’t responding to anything I was saying.”

“I didn’t hear you,” he says softly, looking down at the table.

“Dude,” Stan shakes his head, tired of this shit, “you need to tell him.”

Kenny refuses to lift his eyes from the table, and Stan watches as he leans forward and hides his mouth beneath his hands. “I don’t know what you mean,” he says, voice muffled.

“Don’t play dumb, Kenny.”

For a moment Kenny is silent. His gaze flickers from the table, to the redhead still waiting at the counter, before finally resting on Stan. Stan who is in no way backing down from this. The blond crumples in defeat.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Dude,” Stan says, switching to a much softer tone, “I’m pretty sure half the school thinks you two are already dating.”

Kenny snorts, but behind the disbelief there’s a spark of something hopeful in his gaze. “No way, dude.”

Before Stan can reply, Kyle is suddenly back and he slides in the both beside Kenny. He passes Stan his cup before taking a sip of his own and pushing it so it sits directly between him and Kenny. When the blond gives him a questioning look he just shrugs, “I got the largest size they had, I’m never going to finish it all anyway.”

“Thanks, Ky!” He meets his eyes with a huge smile which causes Kyle to mutter something that might be _no problem_ , before quickly looking away.

Stan shoots Kenny a raised brow and the blond flips him off in response. Yet, Stan doesn’t miss the way he then gazes down at the drink, expression thoughtful.

His two friends taken care of, Stan takes the time to look back at her table, only this time he immediately meets her gaze. Her lips curve up in an uncharacteristically shy little smile at having been caught staring, and she wriggles her fingers at him in a clandestine attempt at a wave. The familiar fluttery feeling returns in his gut as he feels his lips curling up into a smile of his own.

God, he missed her.

_Thwack._

“Ow, dude what the fuck?”

Stan holds his wounded cheek and looks down at the weapon of choice, the familiar shape of the lollipop staring back at him. Eyes drifting up, he meets Kenny’s amused yet knowing gaze.

Maybe it was about time he followed his own advice.

***

The spring comes in shades of multicolored flowers. Stan looks at them through his classroom window, seeing the way that they sprout up in patches next to still melting snow, and how the trees’ branches are lined with small buds that have yet to blossom. They will though, eventually. Just as they always do.

The final bell of the day rings and Stan jumps from his seat and hurries through the halls, one destination in mind.

“Wendy,” he says as he reaches her locker, “can we talk?”

Her hand hesitates on her locker door where she had been in the middle of opening it. Then, without looking at him she shakes her head with a sigh and slowly shuts it again. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Stan.”

“It’s just a talk,” he says quickly. “The weather’s nice, so we can walk around town,” he leans against the locker next to hers with a small smile and an easy shrug. “I’ll buy you ice-cream and you’ll eat yours until you give it away to some kid again, and then you can have mine.”

She lightly laughs and looks up at him, eyes glimmering with affection. “Well, that doesn’t sound too bad.”

He waits as she collects her things from her locker, and before they leave he offers her his hand. She takes a moment to look at it before she shakes her head with a defeated little sigh and easily takes it once again within her own.

***

The sky above is colored in orange and red hues as they lounge beside Stark’s Pond. The air is comfortably warm, a bit cooler than it had been during the day when they’d decided a day at the lake would be a summer day well spent.

And it had been. It really had.

A little in the distance, Stan can make out the shapes of Cartman and Butters, the two doing who knows what while Butters occasionally looked back at them with a little wave as if to check that they were still there. Sitting in the grass in front of him sits Kyle who looks half asleep and beside him Kenny who appears to be trying to make something out of blades of grass he keeps plucking from the ground.

And then there’s Wendy.

Her familiar warmth is settled against his side as she simultaneously texts someone on her phone and chats idly with them all. Stan keeps his arm around her, and once again thanks whatever god had allowed him to sit like this without having to fight the queasy feeling in his stomach. It’d been almost three years since he’d thrown up his lunch due to Wendy, and as much as he was thankful he couldn’t help but notice that Wendy sometimes brought the old habit up with something soft in her expression. Not many things changed between them through the years; yet, Wendy was always one to bring up their early days as if they weren’t still here. As of they weren’t still young.

He supposes Wendy was just like that with a lot of things.

“Oh Kyle,” Wendy says without looking up from the screen of her phone and stirring Stan from his thoughts, “Bebe wanted me to tell you she had fun on your date last week.”

Stan freezes, his eyes shifting to Kenny who turns to Kyle with a sharp look. “Date?”

Well, shit.

“Yeah,” Kyle says with an easy shrug, clearly not getting the issue, “we went on a double date with Wendy and Stan.”

“You never told me.”

Kyle seems as if he’s at a loss. “I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

From beside him, he feels Wendy stiffen as if she had just realized the mistake she had made. He squeezes her hand comfortingly. “Don’t worry about it,” he whispers in her ear, “they’ll work it out.”

She seems unsure, but she nods and settles back down, trusting that Stan knows his friends enough to know what’s best.

“I didn’t know that you liked her,” Kenny is saying, something distinctly hard in his tone.

Kyle looks between Kenny, and Wendy, clearly confused and not really knowing the right answer. “I don’t...dislike her,” he says carefully, “she’s nice enough.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Kenny rolls his eyes. “What’d she blow you or something?”

“No!” Kyle squawks, taken aback.

“Then is it her tits? Got a hidden thing for them or something?”

“Kenny, stop-”

“Because you’ve definitely never shown any interest in them before.”

“What is with you?” Kyle says, voice cracking in hurt as he rises to his feet. For a moment he looks down at Kenny, who has gone back to playing with the grass and is pointedly avoiding his gaze, before he just shakes his head and storms off.

“Kenny,” Wendy says gently after Kyle is out of hearing distance, “why’d you do that?”

But Kenny doesn’t even look at her. Instead, he just shrugs and pulls the hood of his parka up, falling backward into the grass without another word.

***

Stan walks Wendy home in the warm summer night, the stars a glimmering blanket above them.

When they reach her house she smiles before she leans up and kisses him, a sweet and lingering press of her lips.

“Goodbye, Stan,” she says softly, running her hand from where it rested on the top of his shoulder, down his arm, and finally down to his hand where she gives it a small squeeze before letting it go. He watches as she walks up the steps to her front door, turning to give him one last wave with a laugh, “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

***

He watches her walk away as the autumn leaves fall around him. His heart empty where it sits broken inside his chest.

“Bye, Wendy,” he sniffles into the open air.

***

Stan’s almost certain that the glare Kyle’s giving the girl across the room is fiery enough to burn through steel. The two of them are sitting across from each other at a table in Tweek Bros, and everything had been going fine until a very certain blond walked in.

It was just Stan’s luck. This entire situation was starting to get straight ridiculous. They’d been going around in circles for weeks now, and if they didn’t get themselves sorted out soon Stan was getting ready to lock the two of them in a room and tell them to figure it out. Because if he thought they were bad before, back when they were a pair of pining idiots that called themselves friends, having them fighting with each other was a million times worse. And about a billion times more annoying.

“Dude, chill,” Stan tells him with a tired sigh.

The plastic cup of iced coffee Kyle had been holding slightly crinkles within his hand as he glares, “I hate her.”

Stan pinches the bridge of his nose, suddenly wishing he was at a damned bar and not a stupid coffee shop. “Why?”

Kyle’s gaze narrows even further, a feat Stan wasn’t even sure had been possible, as he stares at the perky brunette girl sitting next to Kenny a few tables down.

“She’s not good for him, Stan,” he seethes.

“Okay, then who is?”

“I don’t know!” Kyle heatedly whispers, “Someone that’s not her! Someone that’s going to support him. Who understands him and is more than just a piece of ass!”

“Someone like you?”

Kyle finally turns his attention away from the two of them and looks at Stan. “I...” Kyle’s brow crinkles as if Stan had just given him a very complicated math problem and he shakes his head. “Kenny’s just a really good friend, and I… I just care about him.”

Stan’s about to call him out on his bullshit when he’s interrupted by a very familiar voice.

“Hey, Ky.” And sure enough there’s Kenny, standing in front of their table with his normal easy nonchalance, but there’s something sharp to his tone that Stan doesn’t miss. Biting. Looking over, he realizes that his date must have left. Probably used Kyle’s momentary distraction to skip town. Smart girl.

Flickering his gaze back to the two of them, he notices their eyes are locked, some sort of silent conversation happening between them, Then, without warning, Kenny reaches over and grabs Kyle’s drink, taking the straw into his mouth and slowly sucking while maintaining eye contact with the redhead the entire time. When he’s done he puts the now nearly empty cup on the table and winks, “I’ll catch you guys later.” Then he turns and walks off, leaving Kyle a comically bright shade of red.

Stan is stunned. Kenny: one, Kyle: zero.

“You were saying?”

In lieu of an answer, Kyle slams his head on the table and groans.

***

It’s early winter by the time Kyle and Kenny finally truly make up. Stan’s pretty sure that the entire school is relieved, there’s only so much passive-aggressive idiocy that a person can witness before it becomes too much, after all.

Stan walks into the cafeteria, only to see the two of them sitting at the table with their heads ducked down towards each other as they whispered back and forth about something.

It was really about damn time.

“So,” Stan says with a large grin as he sits down across from them with his tray, “you two finally kissed and made up, huh?”

“Sure did,” Kenny says with the largest smile he’s seen from him in weeks as he throws an arm around Kyle’s shoulders. “Ky and I decided that our friendship was too important to let a stupid argument get between us.”

Wait a minute...

“...Your friendship?”

Kyle gives him a sharp look while Kenny’s arm slides from his shoulders and he goes to pretending to be suddenly very interested in the pattern on the cafeteria table. “Yes, Stan,” Kyle says slowly, “our friendship.”

Stan pinches the bridge of his nose, “Oh my god.” Then without another word, he starts gathering all his things and standing from the table.

“Stan,” says Kyle, “what are you doing?”

“Leaving. I can’t deal with this right now.”

“Where are you even going?” Kyle asks in bafflement, as gathers the last of his things and turns to leave.

“Anywhere that isn’t here.”

***

Stan can’t go to Wendy for obvious reasons, and so that leaves only one choice in seating. He’d been meaning to talk to him for a while anyway, and to his luck it appeared that the rest of his table hadn’t shown up yet.

“Hey, Craig,” Stan says after settling in the spot across from him, “we’re friends, right?”

“No.”

“Right, well anyway, can I ask you something?”

Craig looks around as if to check if he’s being pranked. When nothing immediately jumps out at him he looks back at Stan with an endlessly tried and blank stare. “You’re just going to ask it anyway.”

Stan nods. “How have you and Tweek managed to stay together?”

“We don’t break up.”

“Thanks, jackass,” Stan rolls his eyes, “I’m asking how.”

“Because we’re friends, dipshit. If we have a problem we talk it out.”

There it was again.

Because they were friends.

Stan doesn’t answer for a while, and soon enough Craig’s gang pile in around him, and Tweek settles in beside Craig. From the corner of his eye he watches their natural chemistry, the way that they seem to communicate through wavelengths. Always knowing what the other one was saying, and what they needed. It was a scene that Stan had become very familiar with over the years, yet had never really realized it was so common.

Never realized what wasn’t so common.

Stan’s suddenly reminded of the movies and TV shows he’d watch when he was a kid. Romantic comedies, and family sitcoms with fights that were solved with flowers and a smile. Love that was eternal, because it was true, and as long as there was love then everything would turn out okay in the end.

Stan sighs.

They’d made it look so damn easy.

***

Soon enough, the dull and ugly winter turns into a dull and lifeless spring, just as it always does.

Stan walks home from school alone, not really in the mood to talk to anyone. It’d just been one of those especially bad days and really he just wanted to get home as quickly as possible so he could sleep. His eyes view his feet as he walks, look at the cracks of the sidewalk and at the small flower petals that get further crushed beneath his shoes.

“Stan!”

He looks up only to suddenly be met with the body of Wendy Testaburger crashing into him full force, as she wraps her arms around his neck and fiercely hugs him. Stan can feel something inside him melting at the warm and unexpected sensation, and he holds her tightly back for as long as he can until she gently pulls away.

“I’m sorry…” She says softly, shaking her head with glistening eyes as she looks at him. “I just...you looked so miserable Stan and I...I don’t know what came over me.”

He lets her words sink in and flounders for his own. Here was his chance to fix things again, but should he? How many more times could they do this?

“Wendy I…”

_Do you love me?_

He wants to say them, but he can’t make himself do it. He has no idea what’s going on in her head, and that terrifies him. If there’s one thing that’s more frightening than not knowing, it’s knowing for certain that there really was no hope. He loved her and she cared for him, this he knew, but was that really enough?

Had it ever been enough?

She stands there, waiting patiently with true concern in her eyes as she waits for him to say something, and he sighs.

“I want things to work out between us,” he settles on saying instead. It might not be what he should say, but it’s honest.

For a moment she hesitates, a silent war raging within her eyes, before she chokes on a small laugh and wipes a stray tear that had fallen down her cheek. “I want that too.”

And so he wraps her in his arms once again. Holds her close to him and tries his best to ignore the disquiet he feels within his chest. The pressure of a universe that seemed hell-bent on tearing them apart no matter how hard they tried.

But they’d just have to try harder. Because that’s what it meant to love someone. You _tried_. That’s why his parents never worked out and that’s why other people did always come out okay in the end. That’s why he and Wendy would.

Why they had to.

***

They’d just graduated eighth grade, junior high now a memory set behind them and high school looming before them on the horizon. Stan and Wendy are waiting for Kyle in the hallway of the school so that they can make their way to Stark’s Pond, where the others have already gathered. Wendy and Kyle having stayed after to talk to a few of their teachers, and Stan had been perfectly content to follow them around, strangely enough not in any hurry to leave just yet.

“I think I’m going to miss this place,” Wendy says from beside him, gaze trained on the now empty hallway.

Stan nods silently and takes her hand, giving it a firm squeeze.

Before they know it, Kyle walks out of his old science room and gives them a small smile.

“You guys ready to go?”

Stan and Wendy both nod, and together they walk down the old familiar hallway for the last time, stepping through the double doors and into the warm summer air.

Kyle and Wendy chat aimlessly along the way to Stark’s Pond while Stan finds himself lost in thought.

Here he was, officially a high schooler. Wasn’t he supposed to feel different? A little older maybe? Maybe should have felt more like Cartman, Butters, and Kenny who had cheered at the final bell and ran out of the school without a second thought. More like Kyle who seemed to have perked up and was animatedly talking about his plans for the summer, putting academia behind him for once.

Instead, he just felt the same as he always did.

Stan swings his and Wendy’s hands between them as they walk, a quiet metronome of motion. He counts the swings as they cross the very last of the ground between them and the rest of their friends sitting on the bench in front of Stark’s Pond.

“Took you assholes long enough,” Cartman greets them first.

“Hey dudes,” Kenny greets, and Butters looks up from his spot on the bench beside him to offer a wide smile and a wave. Stan returns it the best he can and leads Wendy to sit on the ground next to him, the bench full between the other three. Kyle is about to follow suit when he’s stopped by a voice.

“Hey Ky,” Kenny says, patting his lap with a wink and his normal playful grin set in place.

Stan rolls his eyes and Wendy shakes her head and laughs as she settles in beside him.

“Don’t be gay, Kinny,” Cartman snorts, and Kenny giggles and shrugs.

But Kyle hasn’t moved.

There is slight flush to his face that’s still present, but Stan also notices something else there. Something distinctly determined, maybe even mischievous. Then everyone watches in stunned silence as Kyle marches over to Kenny and plops down on his lap, crossing his arms and looking at him with an arched brow and a smugly amused tilt to his lips.

Kenny meanwhile, is frozen, eyes comically wide.

But then Kyle whispers something to him and Kenny nervously laughs, relaxing enough to gently rest his hands on the boy sitting on top of him.

“Fags,” Cartman says not a moment later, eloquently breaking the silence. But Stan can tell there’s no fire behind it, not really. Kyle kicks him anyway, and Cartman curses and tries to push him off but Kenny’s grip just tightens as he falls into a fit of giggles.

And things move on as normal.

Things move on, yet Stan can’t stop his eyes from flickering to the two of them. Taking in the way that they seem even closer than they had before. As if their fight had brought them closer. Made them a little more inseparable. They’d hit an obstacle and they’d surpassed it. Gotten stronger.

Stan pulls Wendy a little closer to him. And maybe he imagines that she presses against him just a little bit further, grips his hand just a little bit harder.

But deep down he knows that nothing has really changed.

***

It’s early morning, as Stan and Wendy sit under a blanket on his couch, another one of their movie nights coming to an end.

When the last movie ends, and they sit through the credits without a word, the title screen coming back on and Stan reaching for the remote and turning the TV off altogether.

Still, they don’t move. The sound of the clock ticking on the wall the only thing between them. Looking at Wendy, Stan notices that her gaze is trained on the world outside the open window, a little ways off from the TV.

“Summer’s almost over already,” Stan says quietly.

Wendy sighs and goes back to leaning her head against his shoulder. “Yeah,” she whispers. “I know.”

“I wish it didn’t have to end.”

She reaches for his hand and holds it within her own, giving it a firm squeeze.

“Me too,” she says with a sad yet sweet tilt to her lips, a half smile that Stan matches with one of his own. A full one between them.

And together they watch as the first signs of dawn begin to peek through the sky.


	10. High School

It is a warm day in South Park, the summer fighting its inevitable departure as the month of September opens the doors for autumn. Just as it always did. In front of the doors to South Park High, stands the majority of the school’s newest students. Grouped together, or standing alone, waiting for their friends before they crossed the final threshold standing between them and their official status as high school students.

A new day. A new beginning.

An ending to whatever was before.

Or, at least that’s what it was supposed to be.

A car pulls up in front of the school and Eric Cartman steps out of the passenger-side door.

His mother waves from the drivers' side, but he doesn’t return it as he turns away from her. A moment later, she drives away. Cartman takes a second to look around the schoolyard before his eyes settle on a certain point ahead and he begins to slowly walk. He ambles over to where Kyle is seated on the ground in front of the school. Kyle has his back against the wall and has a book open in front of him, even though his reading seemed to currently be abandoned in favor of typing on his phone.

When Cartman reaches him, he stands over him, a shadow blocking the light of the sun. Towering. He says something, most likely an insult, but Kyle doesn’t even look up from his phone.

Doesn’t rise to the bait like he used to.

Instead, he just flips him off, eyes glued to the small screen held nestled in his other hand.

Dissuaded, Cartman moves over to lean on the wall next to Stan. Stan whose gaze was currently focused on something he obviously found much more interesting than Eric Cartman.

In a flurried mix of windblown hair and papers held tightly in her hands in her best attempt to keep them from blowing away, Wendy Testaburger hurries across the schoolyard.

“Hey, Wends!” Bebe calls from behind her. “Wait up!”

Wendy slows but doesn’t stop, the wind catching her hair and flowing around her face as she looks over her shoulder and greets her friend. Bebe catches up after a short jog, and together they hurry beyond the doors and into the school building.

Stan’s gaze stays trained on the doors for a moment after it shuts, up until something catches his eye and he holds out his hand. The object falls gently onto the heart of his palm. A single leaf. He looks at it for a moment, before he lifts his hand back up to the breeze and lets it go, watching as it gets carried away in the wind once more. His shoulders sink and he leans back heavily against the wall.

Not a moment later, Butters makes his way across the schoolyard.

He’s humming something, with his arms crossed behind his back. Everyone he passes he gives a wide smile, but although very few return it, he doesn’t get discouraged. Just keeps doing it anyway.

He spots the trio over by the wall and makes his way over to them. Kyle offers him a glance and a quick smile before he turns his gaze back to his phone. Stan pushes himself up from the wall and straightens, returning the blond’s sunny greeting with one a bit more somber. Cartman doesn’t say anything, but he too seems to stand taller at the blond’s presence.

Butters takes a moment to look at them both before he suddenly moves forward and grabs both of their sleeves in an attempt to pull them away from the wall. Not that he has the strength to do so, but Stan seems to have no qualms about following his lead and despite Cartman’s protests he also allows himself to be pulled forward.

Not letting go of their sleeves, Butters starts leading them towards the door of the school; although, Stan seems to hesitate, looking back down at Kyle.

A few words are exchanged and Kyle shakes his head. Still, Stan lingers as if torn. Kyle just waves him off.

And so, with Butters between them, Stan and Cartman enter high school for the very first time.

The schoolyard is now almost empty. Time ticking away and the numbers drawing closer to when they all had to be in their homeroom. There was still time though. Not much, but some.

It’s not too much longer before a streak of orange comes running across the courtyard, looking half haggard, as if his morning hadn’t quite gone the way he had planned. He stops in front of Kyle and the redhead looks up at his panting form with concern, slipping his phone back into his pocket. Although, whatever it is must not be too serious because soon enough Kenny says something that has Kyle’s concerned look turning to one of fond amusement.

Kenny holds out a hand and Kyle takes it, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. Their hands stay connected just a bit longer than necessary before Kyle pulls away to pick up his things.

Their shoulders brush as they walk into the building, side by side.

He watches the doors close after them, checking his phone for the time. He swears to god if-

“Hey, Tweek.”

“Agh! Jesus man!” He squawks, nearly dropping his phone and almost spilling his coffee. “I told you to stop sneaking up on me like that!”

Craig just smirks and moves to sit beside him on the bench, taking his hand.

Tweek shoots him a glare. “Nine more minutes and you would have made us late, asshole.”

“You hate getting to class early anyway.”

Well, it wasn’t so much the class that was the problem, it was the people in the class he’d rather not have to deal with having forced conversations with when there was no easy escape. Those forced interactions that always happened in that time before class started when apparently everyone had to be as loud and talkative as possible before they were forced to shut up for an hour.

But Craig already knew that.

Tweek takes a sip of his coffee, and swings his legs on the bench he’s sitting on. He never did hit his big growth spurt. Probably the caffeine. He always knew that the probability of its excessive consumption affecting him in some way had been exceedingly high. At least it didn’t make him as jittery as it used to. That was a plus.

“You lost, you know,” Craig tells him.

Tweek nods, knowing immediately what he’s talking about. How could he forget?

It was a bet made in the dead of night. Words said between them with nothing but the sky and the ground below them as witnesses. Tweek knew that the odds had been stacked in his favor. The numbers were on his side. Every percentage, every probable outcome, all spelled out the same result.

And yet, here they are.

“Didn’t think we’d make it,” Tweek says finally, looking up at the words ‘South Park High’ written on the school building.

Craig’s hand holding his tightens. “But we did.”

With a smirk, Tweek turns away from the building to look at him. “I could still break up with you right now and win. Technically we haven’t entered high school yet.”

Craig gives him an unamused look. “But you won’t.”

“No,” Tweek says, shaking his head with a small smile, “I won’t.”

Craig snorts. “I still can’t believe you bet against us.”

“Agh! It wasn’t logical!” He defends himself. “It didn’t make sense, man!”

“Not many things do,” Craig says, standing from the bench with Tweek following his lead.

Tweek considers his words as they make their way across the courtyard.

When he had been a kid he’d thought he could find the sense in everything. Everything could be brought down into simple elements. Black and white. Safety in explanation.

But he’d grown a lot since then.

And as true as the hand still holding his, he now knew that wasn’t always the case. Life couldn’t be measured by numbers or statistics. Probability was flawed, and the margin of error was always too large.

Maybe he wasn’t quite sure how exactly a person could measure life, beyond the length of days, or the number of seconds between breaths. But they were still young, he’d have time to figure it out.

“You know,” he finally says as Craig steps forward to pull open the door of the high school. “I think you’re right.”

Craig just nods, giving him one of his rare smiles in response.

And together they walk through the double doors.


	11. The Paradox

The clock on Kyle’s bedside table reads 1:03am.

It’s a school night, and yet that’s precisely why Kyle is up so late in the first place. He’s sitting up in his bed, pouring over index cards that are illuminated by lamp light alone. The pull of exhaustion eats at him, eyes only faintly registering the chemistry formulas and compounds he’d need to know for the test the next day. Still, he fights through it.

Kyle’s nothing if not determined.

Still, as much as he tries to concentrate, he also keeps finding his thoughts drifting to a very certain friend of his. Drifting in a way it so often did whenever his focus got away from him.

Bright blue eyes peeking up at him through shaggy blond hair. Regarding him with an unwavering focus that made Kyle feel like the most important person in the universe.

A smile, bright, warm, and true in a way he’d only seen directed at him and Karen.

A giggle right next to his ear, a sound just for him that never failed to melt his heart.

The brush of a warm shoulder against his.

The soft feel of a gentle hand on his arm and the guaranteed following of a warm tingle that would travel down his spine.

That one time he found Kenny lip locked with one of the girls he’d been with in the past. The initial horror and following rage, yet also the mute fascination that Kyle tried to squash down. Seeing the tilt of his head. Mussed hair. Of following the line of Kenny’s hands, how they trailed down her arms as he kissed her.

Imagining himself in her place.

Kyle would have brought him in closer, fingers ghosting across his jaw, the back of his neck, through his hair. The tension would have left Kenny as he relaxed into the kiss. As he let Kyle consume his world until he no longer remembered that auburn haired bimbos with stupid fake laughs ever existed.

Kyle squinches his eyes shut and runs a hand through his hair, finally abandoning the index cards to the spot beside the clock on his bedside table.

He should probably sleep.

The thought only just crosses his mind when he’s startled by a tapping sound coming from his window. He looks over and through the glass and the fall of his curtains he can see the distinct visage of a costume he hadn’t seen in years.

“What the hell?” Kyle mutters to himself.

Stumbling from his bed, he hurries over to the window and pulls it open so that Mysterion can enter. The figure partly stumbles and Kyle goes to steady him only to be pushed away. Feeling damp seep into his clothing from where his hand touched his arm, Kyle looks down to see the shape of a handprint in what appears to be blood.

He takes in the state of the vigilante with wide eyes.

“Kenny,” he chokes out, “what happened?”

The vigilante’s eyes are hard when he throws him a look. “Mysterion,” he corrects, the old gruff voice apparently still a staple of his hero persona.

Kyle’s gaze narrows. “What?”

“Don’t call me Kenny.”

Kyle eyes him in pure confusion. He’s not quite sure what to do, he’d thought Kenny had retired the costume years ago, and yet here he was. Stiffened shoulders. Hard eyes. Defensive as ever.

What happened?

Softening his gaze into something much more concerned, Kyle tries a different approach and moves forward to rest his hand on his arm.

Mysterion quickly steps away.

Kyle looks at his hand hovering in the empty air with a frown before dropping it back down to his side.

“Are you hurt?” He asks him, giving him a once over for any apparent injuries.

“No.”

Kyle swallows down the lump in his throat, relieved but knowing he really shouldn’t be. That meant the blood covering his hands and soaking into his clothes wasn’t any of his.

And there was a lot of blood.

Taking a deep breath, Kyle runs a hand through his hair. “How long has this been going on?”

In answer, Mysterion turns his gaze away and crosses his arms. “That’s none of your concern.”

A while then.

“Kenny, you need to stop this. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

Admittedly, Kyle hadn’t been expecting much from his words. It seldom was so easy to say stop and then have everything be instantly fixed. Yet, he certainly wasn’t expecting the complete adverse reaction Kenny would have to his statement. A slight growl the only warning proceeding the masked figure’s outburst.

“Yeah, no shit it happens all the fucking time!” He snaps, taking Kyle by surprise and turning to start pacing back and forth in front of him, a moving shadow. “I. _Always. Die._ What do I need to fucking do to get you assholes to believe me!”

“What?” Kyle says, completely baffled by his sudden fury. “You haven’t mentioned that since we were kids. I thought-”

“You thought what?” Mysterion cuts him off, letting out a harsh laugh that holds no trace of humor. “You thought that it stopped?” He stops his pacing, turning to Kyle and throwing out his arms. “Oh no wait, that’s right, you just thought that I gave up on the joke. Well, I gave up alright, but it was never a goddamn joke in the first place.”

Even through the gruffness, Kyle can hear real hurt in his voice and it breaks his heart. Despite the adverse reaction he received last time, Kyle takes a step towards him.

“Kenny...”

“I’m not him!” The vigilante snaps, taking his own step forward to close in on Kyle’s personal space. Even though Kenny’s always been shorter than Kyle, the action doesn’t fail to be intimidating. Still, Kyle doesn’t back down, crossing his arms and remaining unwavering before him. The two of them at a standstill.

Kyle searches his eyes and with mute horror he realizes that he can find no trace of his friend within the darkened blue. None of his normal warmth, not a spark of familiarity. It was as if he was lost somewhere within, hidden behind a wall of dead eyes and cold detachment.

“You’re right, you’re not.” Kyle’s voice is cold, and he swears that he notices Mysterion flinch. Well, good. “So tell me _Mysterion_ , why did you come here?”

For the first time, the vigilante seems to hesitate. Opening his mouth as if to answer, before shutting it again just as quickly. Eventually, he just shakes his head.

“I don’t know, but I shouldn't have.” His voice, although still gruff, is somewhat softer. He turns back toward the window to leave. “This was a mistake.”

Kyle watches him go, or at least he should watch him go. Mysterion was an asshole, even more so then he had been when they were kids. Yet as Kyle watches him walk past him, something unpleasant churns in his gut. A peek of blond hair slipping through the hood serving as a reminder of just who was under the harsh persona. Just who would be heading out into the night to probably get caught in a damn gang fight or something equally deadly.

And costume or not, this boy was his world.

Probably against his better judgment, Kyle reaches out and grabs his cape.

“Wait.” Kyle’s hand tightens on the fabric as he bows his head in defeat. He clenches his eyes shut and firms his resolve. “Let me help you.”

Mysterion stiffens. “What?”

“Anything you need me to do, bandage wounds or find information, I’ll do.”

The vigilante finally turns to look at him, and with a sharp inhale Kyle recognizes a spark of warmth in his blue eyes. A shade of his Kenny.

“Kyle…”

Kyle takes a step forward, knowing now more than ever that he needed to do this. “Please?”

After a moment, Mysterion slightly inclines his head in agreement and Kyle releases a breath of relief.

Because Kenny was still in there somewhere. Seven feet under, lost and trying to find the surface.

And Kyle would not let him drown.

***

The following day the news of a murder circulates around town, spreading through gossip passed by student to student as it reigned as the top story in the news.

The man killed was a gang member, so the police don’t do much in terms of an investigation, blaming ordinary gang violence for his death.

Kyle, of course, knows the truth.

He glances beside him at Kenny, the blond covering his mouth to muffle his giggles at something Stan must have said from where he sat across the cafeteria table. Kenny had been late to school again, so Kyle hadn’t gotten a chance to speak to him alone. The lunchroom was the first time he’d seen him since Mysterion had all but vanished out his bedroom window as soon as he stated the terms of their arrangement.

Well, if Mysterion could even be considered Kenny at this point.

_“Did you hear that he’d been stabbed?”_

_“I heard they found him in a pool of his own blood.”_

A hand settles on his arm and he looks over to see Kenny, bright blue eyes regarding him with concern. “Ky, are you okay?” His words are quiet, keeping their conversation private in case Kyle didn’t want anyone else to know that something was wrong. He knew him well enough to know that Kyle normally liked to keep such things private.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Then again, Kyle didn’t normally lie either.

Kenny looks at him like he doesn’t believe him in the slightest. But he drops it to Kyle’s relief, returning to his conversation with Stan and Butters. Cartman was spending his lunch at the library for some reason again, not that Kyle minded, he didn’t think he could deal with his assholery today.

There were too many things running through Kyle’s head. Too many overheard conversations and the memory of a shadow who had visited him in the dead of night. Choices and ways to deal with it, none of them promising a future where everything would work out okay.

Kyle was at a loss.

Before he knows it the bell rings, and everyone begins collecting their things and filing out from the cafeteria. He slowly rises to his feet, offering a slight nod to Stan and Butters who head off to class together. Kenny waits for him as usual, and walks directly beside him as they exit the cafeteria and enter the hallways.

“Dude, are you sure you’re okay?” Kenny asks him again, now that it’s just them. No doubt noticing that Kyle was still being unusually quiet.

Kyle looks at Kenny, his sideways smile and clear blue eyes, and he makes a decision.

Grabbing his wrist, Kyle starts leading him in the opposite direction of their classroom and towards the theater hallway that was usually mostly empty. The blond offers him a questioning look but doesn’t argue, just allows himself to be led.

Once they’re away from the hallway traffic, Kyle finally stops and turns to face Kenny, releasing his hold on his wrist. Then, before Kenny can say anything, Kyle wraps his arms around him, bowing his head and resting his forehead on his shoulder. After a moment of initial shock, Kenny relaxes into it, returning the hug with just as much force.

“I’m sorry,” Kenny eventually says into the fabric of Kyle’s jacket, voice so small and muffled that for a moment Kyle wonders if he heard it at all.

Kyle pulls back to look at his face and notices that Kenny’s eyes are glistening with unshed tears. He swallows a lump forming in his own throat. “Ken, I hate him.”

“I know,” Kenny says, a single tear managing to escape from his eyes. Kyle watches it trail down his cheek, making its silent journey down to his jaw before landing on the floor between them. When Kenny next speaks his voice is impossibly quiet, his words chilling Kyle to the bone while also serving to strengthen his resolve.

“I hate him too.”

***

The thing about patterns is that their only capability is to repeat. If nothing is done to break them, then the only thing that they can do is continue.

“I need information on the gang down on First Street.”

Kyle looks up at the vigilante from where he’s seated at his computer desk, hoping that he’s not serious even though deep down he knows that he is. Unlike Kenny, Mysterion isn’t one for jokes. And as he expected, the vigilante just stares back at him with that same empty look in his eyes until Kyle turns to his computer and starts searching.

He’s heard horror stories of that gang. Tales of stabbings and gunfights, victims found mutilated in forest clearings. Kyle clenches his eyes shut. He can feel the tears coming again, but he can’t cry, can’t let the dark hero in his room see that he’s upset.

Because then he might leave.

And him leaving, knowing he was out there finding them anyway without Kyle’s discovered information to help him, hurt even worse. If helping him felt like someone was squeezing his heart with a tightened fist, than the alternative would be grasping it with claws, shredding it down into pieces too small to be repaired.

_Is this what it felt like to love someone?_

The thought comes out of nowhere, but once it surfaces Kyle can’t seem to squash it back down.

He looks over at Mysterion who’s moved over to sit on the edge of his bed. Takes in his small yet dangerous form as he focuses on something outside Kyle’s bedroom window.

A shadow in the dead of night. A dark blanket of cloth and material hiding the form of a boy with sparkling blue eyes and a smile that could bring the world to its knees. The same boy who loved flowers and used to draw them in shades of yellow, orange, and green, his knowing eyes peeking up at him through the fabric of his hood.

Kyle turns back towards his screen and grits his teeth as he continues typing away on his computer.

_Probably._

***

The other thing about patterns is that they’re almost unrecognizable, especially after growing up with them.

It’s the little things, things that seemed unnoticeable before that little switch in the brain occurs, the little nudge in the right direction that changes everything. Brings light to things that have always been there, and gives them new meaning.

They’re walking home from school, Kenny taking the spot that was closest to the street. As if he’s a barrier between Kyle and any vehicle that might happen to drive up on the sidewalk.

Just as he always has.

_I. Always. Die._

Well except for on days that he wasn’t around. When he vanished for days at a time and never gave anyone a straight answer as to why, not even Kyle.

_What do I need to fucking do to get you assholes to believe me?_

They arrive at Kyle’s house first.

“I’ll see ya later, Ky!” Kenny says with a wide smile. Yet, despite his smile, Kyle sees the way his eyes flit over towards the direction of his house, out past the train tracks, with something that might be fear.

Kyle had always thought that he’d been wary of what type of drunken fight he’d be walking into once he walked through the doors to his home, but what if it wasn’t what was in his house that worried him? What if the fear was in response to the tracks that stood out as an immovable object between them? Of a train that might come out of nowhere?

It was illogical by every standard, but Kyle suddenly found that a lot of things made a lot more sense.

***

When he was a kid, Kyle used to shout his opinions into the universe. Technically it would be to the people around him, but it’s not like they ever listened. His parents. His friends. Anyone.

Just blank stares and rolled eyes.

_That’s ridiculous, bubbe._

There was only one boy in the world who always listened to him no matter what.

A boy with shining eyes and a smile that he used to hide beneath the fabric of his parka.

The boy he was in love with.

Kyle had let him suffer alone for far too long.

With a deep breath, Kyle rises from his computer chair, turning to face the vigilante.

“Kenny-”

“Myst-”

“I believe you.”

Mysterion freezes, eyes behind the shadow of the mask widening and crossed arms falling to his sides weightlessly. “What?” He squeaks, gruffness lost in the tide.

“That you can’t die.” As Kyle says the words he never breaks eye contact, knowing with all the essence of his being that each and every syllable he utters in this moment has the power to change the world. “It’s still hard for me to wrap my head around, but I’m not going to question it anymore. And I can’t promise to change how I react when it happens because I have a feeling that I won’t be able to, but you can tell me all about it later and I promise that I’ll listen to every single word.”

Sometime during his speech, the vigilante had fallen to his knees as if his legs could no longer quite support him. And so, sitting in a crumpled heap on the floor, Kenny stares up at him as if he is divinity itself.

Glistening blue, clear and familiar.

“Kenny...” Kyle says his name softly, kneeling down in front of him and taking his face into his hands.

With trembling fingers, Kyle reaches up and gently slides back the hood, revealing mussed blond hair that he can’t help but run his fingers through in an attempt to flatten it back down. Or maybe it’s really just to serve as a momentary distraction from what he’s about to do next. A soothing gesture for the both of them, heart pounding its very own sympathy within his chest, and their combined breaths suddenly deafeningly loud in the silence. He closes his eyes and takes one last steadying breath.

Removing his hands from his hair, Kyle slides them down until they grasp the edges of the mask, removing it in one gentle motion. And with the barrier gone, Kyle finally allows himself to meet his eyes once more.

His breath catches.

In Kenny’s eyes, behind the veil of unshed tears, sits the most open and vulnerable mix of emotions he’s ever seen. A world of things once hidden below the surface, all finally come to light.

“I believe you,” Kyle repeats in a whisper.

Kenny makes a small sound like a wounded animal before he throws himself into his arms.

“I believe you,” Kyle says again as he holds him, because there’s no proof, no consolation, no logic, and so those are suddenly the only words he knows how to say.

And Kenny just continues to cry, so Kyle doesn’t really think he minds.

***

When people become overwhelmed by emotion sometimes they did things without thinking. Kyle knew that more than anyone, being victim to his own feelings and lashing out when he shouldn't have far to many times. Kenny had just dealt with a whole book of emotion, and had Kyle to thank for his world changing experience.

That had to explain his recent behavior. Kyle would just need to wait it out and then soon enough things would return to normal.

Kenny sure wasn’t making it easy for him though.

Like last week when Kenny had been reaching over Kyle to get something on the table next to him and had decided the best place to balance his hand would be the upper part of Kyle’s thigh. And then how he had kept it there for several heart pounding moments after he’d already settled back in his seat.

Or the other day when they had been playing basketball and Kenny somehow managed to reach over and grab Kyle’s ass. Offering him a wink before running off with the ball.

Or now as he interrupts Kyle’s thoughts to lean in as if to whisper something but, of course, all Kyle can focus on is the way that his lips brush the shell of his ear. A pleasant tingle travels down Kyle’s spine at the sensation and he can’t help but shiver.

When Kenny pulls back, Kyle has the suspicion that he knew exactly what he just did, because instead of looking at Kyle for a response he just offers a sly little smile and a wink before turning away.

Kyle knows he probably doesn’t really mean any of it, but Kenny might actually be driving him insane.

***

They’re in Kyle’s room, trying to work on homework.

Well, at least Kyle is. Kenny seems forcibly determined to become the model distraction, giggling up a storm at his own wordplay.

“Hey, Ky, I really _suck_ at this stuff.”

“I swear to god, Kenny.”

“I need you to _come_ help me.”

“That’s it!”

From his spot where he had been sitting beside him, Kyle goes to shove him over, but Kenny grabs his wrist and brings him down with him. Landing on top of the hysterically giggling blond with a muttered curse, Kyle goes to immediately push himself back up when he freezes, brain coming to terms with their position.

Below him, Kenny stops laughing. He licks his lips and Kyle’s gaze devoutly follows the path of his tongue.

“Kenny…” Kyle breathes, tone heavy and strange to his ears.

Kenny sharply inhales, chest heaving. “Kiss me.”

He doesn’t have to tell Kyle twice.

He leans in and gently kisses him, slow and delicately. Kenny breaks away after a moment, fingers pressing into the back of Kyle’s neck. “Ky, I said kiss me.” Kenny grins against his lips. “I’m not made of fucking glass.”

Then he drags him back down again.

In the end Kyle all but has Kenny pinned against the floor, passion and enthusiasm mixing into a wild fire. When he eventually pulls away, they’re both heaving for air and Kyle leans his forehead against Kenny’s, their breaths intertwining in the small space between their parted lips.

“I want to do that all the fucking time,” Kenny admits breathlessly.

“So, then do it,” Kyle says. “I sure as hell won’t stop you.”

And as their lips connect again Kyle knows his words couldn’t be more true.


	12. The Hero (Part 2)

It doesn’t take long for news of Kenny and Kyle’s relationship to cycle around the school.

Not that even a word has to be said, or that anyone is even surprised in the slightest. It was something that was bound to happen eventually, they weren’t exactly good at hiding it after all. From a childhood of smiles sent across a room and innocent touches that lingered just a little too long, to their teenage adventures in flirting and clandestine brushes of limbs, and then finally to the last few months leading up to their relationship. The months in which Kenny has pursued Kyle relentlessly, seduction tactics that left the normally composed redhead floundering for words, and the majority of outsiders counting down the days until Kyle finally gave in. Because really, once they got together things would have improved for everyone on all sides. It would have finally put an end to their relentless back and forth that was almost painful to watch.

Of course, things did change, but not in the way that most of them had probably hoped.

“Jesus christ, can you two chill for like two seconds?” Stan grumbles as they walk up to Kyle’s locker. Butters can’t help but flush from his spot beside him, trying his very best to avert his eyes so he’s not staring.

Kenny either ignores him or simply is too invested in the taller boy pinning him against his locker to be aware of much anything else. Kyle, on the other hand, seems to take pity and breaks away, resulting in Kenny’s look of pure disappointment.

“Hey,” Kyle says, remarkably composed considering both his prior activity and the fact that Kenny was looking a little worse for wear, leaning heavily against the locker and staring at his boyfriend with a dazed expression. He straightens his clothes and brushes a hand through his curls as he continues, “You are aware that you’re the one that kept pushing us both to get together, right?”

“Yeah,” Stan mutters just loud enough so they all can hear, “push you together anymore and you’ll be screwing each other in the hallway.”

At his words, Kyle freezes, posture visibly turning tense.

For a moment no one speaks, the bitterness in Stan’s tone catching everyone off guard. Butters looks over at him, but Stan’s gaze is focused on his best friend as if waiting for his reaction.

Kenny is the first of them to move, pushing himself up from the locker with a forced laugh. “Well, now that’s an idea,” he jokes in an obvious attempt to lighten the mood. However, both Kyle and Stan ignore him.

Eyes narrowing at Stan, Kyle crosses his arms. “Something’s bothering you.”

He says it as a statement, not as a question, and Butters and Kenny both watch in quiet fascination as the two best friends stare each other down in the middle of the hallway. Kyle’s eyes burning with a quiet fire, a fury burning beneath the surface that was home to the obvious threat within.

Butters knows that look.

Kyle had been battling more judgemental stares and whispers with it in the past two weeks then he could even count. As much as people expected Kyle and Kenny to get together, there would always be people who would judge the fundamentals of the relationship between the suspected ivy league bound boy and the resident poor kid.

As it were, Kyle seemed determined to quiet every one of them by the sheer force of his stare alone. Not that Kenny ever really cared much about what people outside of his friend group said, but Butters had a feeling he was probably real flattered at the effort. Not a lot of people stuck up for Kenny, Kyle had always been one of the select few.

But Kenny doesn’t look flattered now, instead the concern on his face matches that of Butters’ own as the two best friend’s continue their staredown.

It appears to be a conversation between eyes, or maybe a silent fight where they each were waiting for the other to crack. It was hard to tell, even Kenny doesn’t seem too sure on whether or not he should step in. The relationship between Kyle and Stan had always been a strange one that not even Kenny fully understood, which Butters knows because he asked him about it one time. For all Butters knew, the both of them could spontaneously break out in laughter and then all would be done. He sure does hope that’s the case; although, he has a feeling it won’t be this time. The air is awfully tense, and Butters had noticed that Stan had been acting real off lately, maybe Kyle had noticed it too.

After a few more moment Stan is the one to give in. Butters looks over at him as he shakes his head with a sigh, eyes focusing in on the ground.

“Whatever, I’m going to class.”

And just like that, he turns and walks away.

Kyle watches after him for a few moments, a flash of hurt shining through, before he whips around and hastily begins putting in his locker combination while grumbling to himself.

Before he follows after Stan, Butters meets Kenny’s confused eyes from over Kyle’s turned shoulder.

Gee, what had all that been about?

***

During lunch Butters decides to skip going to the cafeteria in favor of attempting to find answers.

Worry flickers in his gut, an unyielding feeling that won’t go away. He tried asking what was wrong, but Stan seemed determined to avoid giving a straight answer. Wouldn’t meet his eyes and hesitated answering questions in a way that was uncharacteristic of him. Butters wants to help, but confrontation of the source is terrifying when the source just happens to be a dark blue eyed boy who hasn’t stopped making his heart pound for years. Words always got jumbled, hands fiddled, eyes trained in on the ground.

_“Gee, Stan. Now that’s not the truth now, is it?”_

Not exactly the correct way you were supposed to pry the truth from someone.

Butters was never too good at demanding things from people. So, he decides to look for the best person he can think of. Someone who was a whole lot better at it than he was.

Which of course is what brought him to the library. According to Stan, this is where she always spent her lunch period.

Walking into the room, Butters immediately spots her reading alone at a table towards the back. But his eyes also land on someone else, someone he’s been seeing around a lot less frequently for a reason he’s not really sure of.

He makes his way over to him first.

“Hiya, Eric.”

Eric looks up from where he’s half buried in papers and textbooks and it’s a strange sight considering Kyle and Wendy were usually the ones who got real serious about school. He looks the same as ever from where he’s surrounded by the several empty bags of chips lying across the table. “Okay, so did you want something?” He says eventually snapping Butters out of his thoughts, apparently having been waiting for him to say something, oops.

“Gee, I was just wonderin’ whatcha been up to in here.”

“What does it look like?” He responds as if the answer is obvious, “I’m studying.”

Butters’ brow crinkles in confusion. “Well, why is that?”

“What is this, twenty questions?” He snaps, clear exasperation entering his tone. “I decided to take extra classes.”

“Why would’ya do that?” Butters asks despite Eric’s previous statement, still not quite getting it. Something just wasn’t adding up.

Eric immediately rolls his eyes, yet also seems to hesitate before he answers. Although, it’s probably just his imagination because Eric never hesitated before saying anything. “Because I’m going places, unlike the rest of you assholes.”

The words are said in his same old haughty tone. The same old egotistical grin, the same old self-absorbed Eric that Butters had gotten used to over the years. Maybe he really was just focusing on his grades for a bit, he probably shouldn’t disturb him too much then.

“Oh, okay,” Butters says, stepping away from his table. “Well, I’ll see ya later then, Eric.”

In response, he just rolls his eyes and looks back to his book.

When Butters makes his way over to Wendy, the main reason he’d come here in the first place, he notices that she’s looking down at what appears to be a map. Not of the USA but some other country, one that Butters can’t recognize. He never was too good at geography.

“Heya, Wendy,” he greets her, remaining standing in the spot across the table from her. She looks up at him and smiles, warm and friendly.

“Oh hey, Butters.”

He returns her smile the best he can with one of his own but he thinks it comes out a little shaky. Not that he means to be nervous, but having the undivided attention of Wendy was always like being stared at by a celebrity or something. Even though he was standing, and she was sitting with her head cradled in her hand as she slouched on the table, he still felt inadequate next to her. “I was just a bit curious,” he finally says, switching his gaze from her eyes to his hands, “but is everythin’ okay between you and Stan?”

Looking back up at her again, he notices the way her brows knit in perplexion. “Yeah, why?”

It was a question he’d figured he’d ask, but he hadn’t really been expecting any other answer. He knew it was the truth. The two had been on their longest dating streak yet, not having broken up in over a year.

It hurt sometimes to think about, but maybe they were starting to get comfortable. Starting to settle. Time having made figuring out how to make things work between them a bit easier.

“Oh, no reason,” Butters says trying to keep his smile from wavering, “he’s just been in a bit of a mood lately. He and Kyle got into some kinda fight today.”

“Hmm that’s weird, he’s seemed fine to me.” She seems honestly surprised at the news, and that little knit appears in her brow again as she hums and taps the purple painted nail of her index finger against the table. “Well,” she says not a moment later, “I can talk to him if you think that might help.”

Butters feels instantly relieved, if there was anyone who could help Stan it was Wendy. “Golly, I sure think it would. Thanks a lot, Wendy.”

She nods with another one of her warm smiles, but just as he turns to leave she stops him again.

“Oh, and Butters,” she says quickly, as if just remembering something. “Thanks for looking out for him.”

At her words, something warm and fluttery mixes around in his stomach that makes him instantly feel giddy, as if he’d just earned a gold star on a test. All he can manage is a sunny smile and a quick nod to her before he hurries back out of the library.

He really did like Wendy.

***

The next day Butters is sitting in his advanced biology class before class begins, most of the students still filing through the doorway. He always liked being early to his classes, especially biology since it was the one class he was actually real good at. He’s doodling a puppy on a page of his notebook while humming a song he’d heard on TV when Wendy slides into the seat beside him.

“I talked to Stan,” she says immediately and without preamble, voice hushed as she leans across the isle towards him.

Butters heart picks up its rhythm inside his chest, nervous for a reason he’s not too sure of. It’s probably just due to having Wendy’s undivided attention again. She sure could make a person feel special.

“Oh gee, ya did?”

“Yeah, and he said everything was fine. I even told him that I was the one who thought he’d been acting differently and he still didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.”

Butters looks down at his paper, at his poorly drawn puppy, suddenly feeling awfully stupid.

“Oh…”

“You know Butters,” Wendy says after a moment, voice even softer than it had been before, “maybe you should talk to him.”

When he looks up from his paper she smiles at him, a small little curve of her lip.

“Wha? Me?”

She laughs lightly. “Yes, you.” Focusing on him with that knowing look she so often gave him, she continues, “He trusts you, Butters, and you’re his friend. If it’s something he doesn't want to tell me then he might talk to you about it.”

Butters can’t help but lower his gaze again, unable to meet her eyes.

It sure is a nice thought, and he was pretty good with advice when people came askin’ it of him. Yet...confronting someone like Stan to pressure him into confiding in him? How was he supposed to do that? He wasn’t confrontational like Eric. Wasn’t brave like Kenny or confident like Kyle. Wasn’t like the girl in front of him who marched to the beat of her own drum, who pursued everything that she wanted with hands that didn’t fidget and a voice that didn’t waver.

He was just Butters.

“Gee,” he says looking down at his hands as he fiddled with them, “maybe we should go and ask Kyle.”

“Butters…” She pauses and he hears her give a long-suffering sigh. Butters flicks his gaze up and sees that she’s pinching the bridge of her nose, an action so characteristic of Stan that it startles him for a moment. “Look,” she continues, “I hate to say this Butters, but you said that the two of them got in a fight and it only started after Kyle and Kenny got together, correct?” Butters nods and Wendy continues, “Then Kyle probably has something to do with it. It’s possible that Stan’s just feeling a bit like a third wheel, even if he won’t admit it.”

“But why would he-”

But before Butters can even finish his sentence, as if on cue, Kyle appears as he practically runs into the classroom moments before the bell rings. He hurries over to his seat, hair mussed and a self-satisfied look on his face.

“Gee, they sure are goin’ at each other a whole lot, aren’t they?” Butters says quickly, gaze flicking to the teacher who was making her way towards the podium.

Wendy nods with a slight grimace, never taking her eyes off Kyle. “That’s what we call ‘the honeymoon phase’.”

Still, despite her almost pained expression, there was something distinctly fond in her eyes. As if she was forty years old and looking at the rambunctious youth with all the nostalgia of days once lived that now could only exist in the past. The same way she used to look at the kids at the playground: small hands and too big dreams.

It was in moments like this that Butters wondered if even Wendy herself knew exactly what she wanted. She switched goals on the daily, joining clubs and then leaving them just as quickly once she was no longer satisfied with them. As the teacher begins their lesson, out of the corner of his eye he watches as her eyes flicker between watching the teacher and looking out the window and he wonders just how much it would take before the poor girl was finally happy with herself.

He won’t ask of course, but he sincerely hopes that she figures it out one day.

***

Butters doesn’t want to confront Stan, really he doesn’t. But days pass, and still nothing changes.

If anything, tensions between Stan and Kyle only grow worse. Stan starts spending his lunch period in the library with Wendy, and Butters is left sitting at their normal table with only Kenny and Kyle for company. No Eric. No Stan. Kyle pretends not to care, but Butters sees the way that he eyes Stan’s normal spot, now empty, with a look that’s half raw anger and half hurt. He knows that Kenny notices too, constantly trying to cheer Kyle up and distract him while also sending Butters worried looks that suggested even he wasn’t quite sure what to do.

Days turn to a week, and then before he knows it another week has passed.

During this time, the “honeymoon phase,” as Wendy had called it, simmers down to an end. Kyle and Kenny remaining clearly as happy and enamored as ever, but having learned to control themselves when other people were around. Well, that went for Kyle at least. Kenny was still a large supporter of PDA, the only difference was that when he went to make a grab at Kyle he got his hands batted away. That didn’t discourage him of course, but then again Butters knew it was usually a real impossible task to discourage Kenny from anything, especially when that anything just so happened to be Kyle.

Still, even as things settled down between Kyle and Kenny, Stan still remained distant. Still avoided all of them for a reason that Butters was getting more and more curious about as the days wore on. Wendy had mentioned him feeling like a third wheel, but that wouldn’t make sense. Butters was almost always around with them, well at least during school, and Stan had gone most of his life being pretty much a third wheel to the flirty adventures of Kyle and Kenny.

Something was wrong.

It’s this thought that finally encourages Butters to make his decision. If he was only trying to help then things couldn’t go too badly, right?

And so, steeling himself, Butters crosses the hallway and walks up to Stan at his locker after school.

“Hey Stan,” he says with only a slight waver to his voice, “didya wanna walk home together?”

Stan freezes from where he’d been shoving books into his locker, and when he turns to Butters his eyes are sad in the way that always made him want to give the boy a hug. “I…,” he seems to hesitate but after a moment coincides with a sigh, “...okay,” he mumbles.

Butters gives him a smile that’s only partially returned. Still, it’s a start.

They begin their journey home in silence. Butters struggling to find the right words to start with, and Stan looking at the world like it had just personally ran over his dog. His shoulders are hunched and his hands are shoved in the pockets of his jacket while his gaze is focused on the ground, only looking up every so often.

“I hate the fall,” Stan breaks the silence first, kicking a leaf with his shoe, “everything fucking dies.”

Butters looks at him in confusion for a moment. Takes in Stan’s posture as well as the scenery around them painted in shades of orange, red, and green. The cool breeze ruffling the soft looking hair of the boy beside him, stirring up the leaves resting across the sidewalk.

He watches them blow past them with a smile. “Yeah, but it’s still awfully pretty, don’tcha think?”

“No, not really.” Stan says immediately before pausing. “Sorry,” he adds almost as an afterthought.

_Sorry for being miserable._

No, no this wouldn’t do.

“Alright,” Butters says, turning around and walking backwards so he could face Stan as they walked, “how about you think of it this way. All the trees lose their leaves in the fall, but it’s only so that the dead leaves and things can fertilize the ground so it’ll be nice and healthy for the flowers that are gonna come around in spring.”

That cute little crinkle forms on Stan’s brow as if he’s trying to make sense of his words and failing. “But spring’s still a long time away.”

Butters nods and meets Stan’s eyes, such a dark blue that they were almost black, like gazing at the depths of the ocean. “Well yeah,” he says softly, “but it will be worth the wait.”

Stan stares at him with a funny look on his face, one that Butters can’t quite recognize the meaning of yet it still manages to send a shiver down his spine. Not quite sure what to do and slightly concerned that he maybe went and offended him, Butters attempts changing the subject. There was a reason he asked him to walk home together after all, and it wasn’t just to talk about the leaves.

“Heya, Stan?” Butters says suddenly. Stan blinks, whatever had been lighting up his eyes vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. He slightly inclines his head in a gesture for Butters to continue, and so he does, making sure to keep his tone as gentle as he can manage. “If there’s somethin’ botherin’ ya you can tell me. Ya know that, don’cha?”

Stan’s lips immediately curve into a frown.

“I told you before dude, everything’s fine-”

But this time Butters isn’t having any of it. Not this time.

“No, it ain’t fine!” Tears prickle at his eyes, and he points a finger at the stupid boy staring at him in shock. “Somethin’s hurtin’ and you’re not tellin’ me what it is. And I’m not just gonna sit back and watch anymore, ya need to tell me the truth now, mister!”

He’s shaking and he wipes at his eyes, wishing he could be strong enough to not start crying at something as silly as this. Wendy wouldn’t cry. Kyle, Kenny, Eric...they wouldn’t cry either.

He was supposed to be demanding answers, but now Stan was just looking at him with pity. He lifts a hand towards him, to comfort maybe, before it falls back to his side and his shoulders slump with a little defeated sigh.

“It’s Kyle and Kenny,” Stan admits, voice remarkably soft. “I’m jealous of them, okay? Is that what you want to hear?”

Butters hears the words but can’t really register their meaning.

“What? Why would ya be jealous?” A sudden thought crosses his mind that settles uncomfortably in his chest, a possibility that he had never considered that would explain so much yet would be awful for everyone involved. “Did ya have feelings for Kyle?”

To his relief Stan blanches. “What? No!” He says briskly shaking his head. “Gross dude, Kyle’s like a brother to me.”

Butters considers this.

“Kenny then?”

“No!” Stan answers just as vehemently, as if appalled Butters would even suggest he might have feelings for one of his two best friends. He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs, and when he next speaks his tone is much softer. “No, of course not. It’s not them, in fact I’m happy they got together,” he pauses, that little confused crinkle forming in his brow once again. “Well, I should be happy.” He looks up at Butters, watery eyes and a broken expression. “God, I’ve wanted them to get together for so long, Butters.” Turning away, he squinches his eyes shut and curses, “Dammit.”

He’s not really sure what he means, but his pain is true and it breaks Butters heart. He wants to help him but he doesn’t know how.

Stepping forward Butters places a comforting hand on Stan’s arm. The boy bows his head a little lower but to his relief doesn’t move away.

“Stan?”

The boy before him takes a deep and shuddery breath. “Dude they’re so _happy_.” He says, voice thick with tears. “It’s not fair. And I’m their best friend, I’m supposed to be happy for them and I can’t be.” His voice breaks and Butters hold on his arm tightens. “I can’t be and I don’t know why.”

The moment he’s done speaking Butters pulls him into his arms and hugs him. It has nothing to do with his attraction, nothing to do with his less than platonic feelings for the boy, none of that matters as he holds him to him nice and tight. The only thing that matters is that his friend is hurting, and this is the only way he knows how to help. The only thing he has to offer. Stan hugs him back after a moment’s pause, and they remain like that until Stan finally stops shaking.

Stan pulls away and when he does Butters makes sure to look him in the eye when he says, “You’re not a bad person, Stan.”

In response, Stan just looks at him like he doesn't quite believe him and shakes his head. “I think I just want to be alone for a while,” he says quietly.

He turns to leave and Butters watches him go. A pulse of regret resounding in his gut, a silent reminder of why he usually always waited until people were ready to talk.

***

Later that night Butters is in his living room watching TV. His mom’s in the kitchen doing the dishes, while his father is upstairs doing something or other which gives Butters control over the TV for once. He’s sitting watching one of his favorite superhero movies when there’s a knock on the door.

“I’ll get it,” he says while getting up to answer it. Although his words are probably unnecessary since his mother never stops her singing from the kitchen, and he knows she doesn’t hear a whole lot when she got to singing like that.

He opens the door only to see none other than Stan standing on his doorstep.

“Stan?” He says in confusion, taking in the slight sway to his stance as well as the unfocused look in his eye and the sheen of sweat on his brow. “Gee, ya don’t look too good.”

Stan laughs loudly. “Yeah,” he slurs, pointing at Butters, “but _you_ do.”

“Oh gee.” Shooting a look behind him to make sure his parents weren’t aware there was currently a drunk teenager on their doorstep, Butters steps out his front door and gently shuts it behind him. He then goes to grab Stan’s wrist only for the other boy to catch his hand instead.

Butters freezes, the warmth of Stan’s hand sinking into his skin. He meets his eyes, the deepest blue he ever did see. An ocean he could happily get lost in, were he given the chance.

Trying to quell the shiver at the warm feeling of Stan’s hand intertwined with his, Butters tears his gaze away and begins leading him down the street, back towards his own house. Apparently Stan was an affectionate drunk, but that was fine. He was fine. Just hopefully Stan’s parents wouldn’t be too sore with him for being so drunk, he didn’t wanna get him in trouble after all.

“Where are you takin’ me?”

“Well, back to your own house.” Butters explains without looking at him. “If my parents saw ya at my house all drunk like this they’d get real sore with me.”

“Oh sorry…” He says as he wriggles his fingers in their grip, as if fascinated by the feeling. Suddenly he stops, almost causing Butters to fall over with his sudden halt. “Wait, I needed to...I needed to talk to you.”

“Golly, I think maybe...”

But all thoughts leave Butters’ head as Stan suddenly steps forward into his space. Close enough that he can smell the alcohol and feel the warmth radiating off his body.

“You said you wanted to know the truth, right?” He asks, all signs of his previous slur almost absent from his tone.

Butters sharply inhales and he finds himself nodding without his control.

His voice drops, something low that makes Butters’ chest pound and his breath shaky. “I told you it was Kyle and Kenny. But you wanna know the other reason seeing them is bothering me so much?”

Stan’s gaze drops to his lips and once again Butters finds himself nodding. Unable to breathe. Unable to think.

Stan leans in.

His heart pounds, a crescendo of pulses that guides him forward to meet him. That tells him to forget everything except for the here and the now, and to allow himself this one small happiness.

Just for a moment.

Butters turns his head away.

“Stan, what are ya doing?” He asks softly.

“Trying to kiss you.”

Hearing the words is like something out of a dream. One of those fantasy’s Butters would daydream about, something that he wanted desperately but never could have. Never even dared to hope.

There was always too much in the way.

Butters gently pushes Stan away from him.

“You’ve been drinking,” Butters says in way of explanation to the hurt and slightly defeated look he receives from Stan.

“Yeah, and so what? I’ve liked you for a while and I’m tired of hiding it, okay?” He attempts moving in close again, low tone paired with his words doing strange things to Butters’ insides. “I want you.”

Butters shivers. He wants him too, so badly it hurts.

But he _can’t_.

“Tell ya what,” he says, taking a solid step away from him. “You tell me that when you’re a little more clear headed, and then we’ll talk about it.”

Stan looks as if he’s about to argue, but something in Butters expression must change his mind. So instead he just fixes him with a look that’s so unguarded it’s almost childlike. “Promise?”

“Sure do,” Butters says with a smile, thankful that Stan doesn’t seem to notice that it’s forced. “Now come on, let’s get ya home.”

***

The next day, it rains.

The jumbled leaves smush under Butters’ feet as he takes his final steps before entering the school building.

He walks slowly through the hallway, knowing his destination and yet not sure if he’s ready to know the answer he’s looking to find out. Looking down at his fiddling hands he almost forgets to smile and wave at Kenny, who’s leaning next to Kyle’s locker, as he always does. Almost forgets to return Wendy’s smile as she hurries by. Almost forgets to greet Eric as he walks by his locker.

He hopes no one notices.

When he at last reaches Stan’s locker, the boy in question is massaging his temples with his eyes squinched shut as if fighting a migraine.

“Heya Stan,” Butters greets him, much quieter than he normally does.

Stan makes a sound of recognition but doesn’t open his eyes or reply.

“How are ya feeling?”

At that Stan groans, “Like I might actually be dying.”

Hope curls up deep in his chest. A dark feeling, knowing that Stan was acting far too casual.

But he had to be sure.

“Gee um, this might sound like an awful weird question, but how much do ya remember of last night?”

Stan finally squints his eyes up at Butters in confusion. “Not much, why?”

Butters’ heart drops. A ten story building, and someone just went ahead and pushed the stupid little organ right off. Serves it right, hopeful little thing it was.

“You came to my house last night,” Butters says quietly, “you’d been drinkin’.”

“Shit, sorry dude. Did I say something weird?”

Weird’s one way to put it; although life changing would be an awful amount more accurate. But Butters can’t tell him that. Can’t tell him anything.

Because he’s not confrontational.

Not brave.

Not confident. 

Not someone who could ever compete with Wendy.

Just Butters.

Maybe one day Stan would tell him.

Clear-headed with focused eyes and things sorted out with Wendy, he’d say ‘Butters I think you’re the only one for me’. And Butters would hold him tight and never let him go.

Or maybe he wouldn’t.

He’d go off and marry Wendy one day. Have three kids and a big house with a dog, and one day when they were old and gray he’d turn to Butters and say, ‘You know, back when we were kids I think I might have loved you’. And Butters would tell him that he knew, and they’d both laugh because oh how silly they were.

How awfully silly.

“No,” the coward tells the dreamer, the grandest of fake smiles in place. “No, nothin’ at all.”

***

One of the things Butters learned in biology is that everything and everyone is made of cells.

They are little microorganisms, little guys who work together to make sure everything works as it should. And when something changes and things get hard, then they adapt.

Stan had given Butters two truths. One impossible to fix, but the other? Well, that he could work with.

“Hi, Mrs. McCormick.”

“Hey boys,” the woman greets as she lets them in the door, “is Kyle not with you?”

Butters sees the way that Stan slightly cringes at the mention of Kyle. Kyle who was still refusing to talk to Stan, likely under the assumption that his super best friend had suddenly decided to be a dick and rain all over his parade. A miscommunication. That’s why they were here, why Butters had talked Stan into coming here with him.

“Nope,” Butters answers, “he had a meetin’ after school.”

It’s the truth, Kenny had told him so when he invited him to hang out.

“Oh alright,” she says, disappointment clear in her tone. “Well, Kenny’s inis’ room.”

They walk past her and as they approach Kenny’s room Butters can see Stan getting more and more tense. He lays a hand on his arm, just for a moment. “Things are gonna be okay, you’ll see.”

Stan gives him slightly wavering smile and he nods.

The door to his room is wide open and together they walk in.

“Hey, Leo, “ Kenny immediately greets, looking over from where he had been doing something at his desk. He pauses, eyes landing on the second guest in surprise. “Oh, hey Stan.”

“Hey dude,” Stan says tightly, nervousness pouring off him in waves.

The smaller boy turns to fully face him, crossing his arms and regarding him skeptically. “You know, Ky’s not here.”

“I know.”

“He’s kind of pissed at you.”

“I know,” he repeats with a very distinct wince.

Kenny narrows his eyes. “This isn’t going to be one of those ‘if you break Kyle’s heart I’m going to rip your dick off’ talks, is it?”

Stan nearly chokes. “Of course not, I care about both of you guys.”

Kenny raises a brow, an action he likely picked up from Kyle. “You’ve sure got a shitty way of showing it.”

Finally, Butters watches as Stan visibly deflates. Nervousness dropping in place of the same old gloomy air he’d been giving off lately.

“I know,” he says, tone full of remorse as he drops his head, “that’s what I’m here about. I know I’ve been an ass lately but I’m not trying to be. I’m honestly really happy for you guys,” he pauses, “or at least I think I am?”

Oh no, there he goes again. Butters knows it’s about time he helped him out.

“He’s jealous,” he points out helpfully.

“Uh, yeah. What he said.”

Kenny, who up until this point had been listening to him talk with an unreadable expression, finally tilts his head in confusion. Butters’ words apparently being the thing that stood out to him. It was probably likely that no one had ever said they were jealous of him in his life.

“You’re jealous? But why would you…” his eyes widen, realization finally clicking into place, “ _Oh_. Yeah okay, got it.”

Stan looks about as surprised as Butters feels.

“You do?”

“Yeah, sure,” he says leaning back on his heel with a slow smirk sliding into place, “Ky and I are a damn good couple, aren’t we? I mean unless you’re saying you want Kyle’s ass-”

“Dude!”

The blond bursts into giggles, but as his laughter dies out his expression turns serious. His eyes flit to Butters before landing back on Stan with a knowing look, something piercing that suggested he knew much more than he let on. “You know, Stan,” Kenny begins thoughtfully, “someday you’re gonna find someone who changes your whole damn world. Maybe you’ll open your eyes one day and see that it’s Wendy, or maybe you’ll realize it’s someone else. After all, I sure as hell didn’t fall for Kyle because I wanted to. You don’t get to choose shit like that. Instead, I fell for him because every time I felt lost and didn’t know what to do, he was there. No matter what.” He shrugs, “You just gotta find who that person is for you.”

When he stops speaking there is a stunned silence that falls over the room.

“Damn, Kenny,” Stan exhales.

And just like that Kenny’s eyes grow wide and he abruptly turns on his heel. “Shit,” he says scrambling through his things on his desk, “I gotta write that down.”

Finding a piece of paper, he plops down on his chair and begins hastily writing. Butters and Stan look at each other in confusion.

“Dude, what the hell are you gonna use that for?”

“Brownie points,” Kenny immediately answers, taking a moment to jab the pen in Stan’s direction as if it was a pointer. “Even if he won’t admit it, Ky loves poetic shit like this,” he grins, eyes sparkling. “Hell, it might even be helpful when I beg him to forgive your sorry ass.”

Stan breathes out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, dude.”

Finishing up whatever he had been writing, Kenny finally tosses the pen back on his desk only to spin around in his chair and finger gun, “Hey now, what are friends for?”

“Right.”

Kenny stands up and stretches. “Well, you comin’ with me and Butters? We’re gonna go grab Cartman and people watch or whatever at the mall.”

“Don’t you have work?”

“Yep. Hence the mall.”

Stan rolls his eyes, but there’s a distinct warmth to it. It’s a return to the way their friendship used to be before everything got all messed up. Butters can’t help but smile.

Mission successful.

“Well, as tempting as that is,” Stan says, “I’m actually supposed to go out with Wendy tonight,” he pauses, expression thoughtful, “But hey, it’s been a few weeks since we had our movie night. Does Friday work?”

Butters notices that same warmth in Kenny’s gaze.

“Yeah,” he says softly, “I’ll let Ky know.”

***

“Oh sorry boys,” Liane says to Kenny and Butters from where they’re standing on her doorstep, “Eric’s up in his room right now and he says he’d rather not be disturbed.”

After the door closes Butters and Kenny give each other a look before they turn around to start walking to the mall themselves.

“What’s been up with him lately?” Kenny asks.

“Golly, I wish I knew. When I asked im’ he just said he’d been studyin’.”

“Studying?” Kenny scoffs. “Ky’s gonna get a kick out of that one.” He pauses, giving Butters a warm smile and lightly nudging his shoulder. “But anyway, what’s been going on with you? I know we haven’t talked one on one like this in a bit.”

“Oh gee,” Butters says, looking down at his hands, “well there there’s not really nothin’-”

“Uh-huh, sure,” Kenny cuts him off. “You gonna tell me what happened or what?”

“Wh-what’aya mean by that?”

“The way you were looking at Stan today at my place,” Kenny snickers. “It was the enchanted look you normally give him, ya know like he’s the best thing since sliced bread, but mixed with something that made me think he might have kicked you in the balls or something.”

“Oh…”

“Besides,” he gives a small shrug, “you’ve been fidgeting more than usual.”

Aw hamburgers.

Butters really should have known this would happen, Kenny always did have a way of reading people. And Butters had his tells, he hated lying and would always fidget too much. An open book, as Kenny had called him before.

“Well ya see…” Butters begins, “the other day Stan tried kissin’ me and-”

“No fucking way, dude!” Kenny cuts him off, seemingly thrilled at the news.

Butters shakes his head. “He’d been drinkin though, so I told him to talk to me about it when he was thinkin’ straight, but then he didn’t remember when I mentioned it.”

“Well shit,” Kenny says, looking at him with sympathy. “That must have been hard on you.”

Yeah, it was.

Butters nods, switching his gaze to the ground. “Afterwards I went and lied to im’, sayin’ that nothing happened. Now I’m kinda stuck, and I’m not quite sure what’ta do.”

When he finishes speaking, Kenny doesn’t say anything right away. Instead the two fall into silence as Butters continues inspecting the cracks on the sidewalk as they walk.

“You know,” Kenny says gently, breaking the silence, “a couple years ago I almost kissed Kyle.”

Butters shoots his gaze up in surprise. He hadn’t heard this before and Kyle and Kenny had only gotten together a few weeks ago.

“Ya did?”

“Yep,” Kenny says easily, popping the ‘p’ and fixing him with a smart little grin. “Now believe it or not, but I do have a lot of self control, even if Ky has always had a way of testing it. We’d been alone in his room. He was telling me this story and I remember looking over at him and his stupidly attractive face and just like that it hit me. How easy it would be to kiss him right then, of how much I wanted to.”

“What stopped ya?”

“About the same thing that probably stopped you,” he explains, tone turning soft for a moment. “I said to myself, ‘Kenny if you go and fuck this up now, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life’. So I didn’t, and look at where I am now.” With a wide grin he throws his arm out in a broad gesture. “I’m Kenny McCormick, the kid who hangs off Kyle fucking Broflovski’s arm.” He winks, “The moral of the story is, you did the right thing, Leo. If it’s meant to be, it’ll work out.”

Butters lets his words sink in, looking at his friend’s warm grin and wanting desperately to believe him. Hope was something he always held close to him, but it was hard sometimes. Hard to look at his situation with the same hope that he viewed others with.

“Ya really think so?”

Kenny honestly seemed to think about this, he was never one for making up lies just to make people feel better. Butters had always liked that about him.

“Don’t get me wrong, I do really think that you two can work out,” Kenny attempts to explain his hesitation after a moment, “but in my case, Ky was always smart, he just overthinks things a little too much. Stan, on the other hand,” he grimaces, “he might need some help, pictures included.”

Butters blinks.

“I should draw?”

“That was a joke, darlin’.” He fixes him with another thoughtful look, “You said before that Wendy had told you it was fine with her if you confessed to him, right?”

“Well yeah, but-”

“Then do it,” he says so seriously that Butters’ words die in his throat. Kenny could sure be intense when he wanted to be. “Look Leo, a couple more months and we’ll be done our sophomore year of high school already, and here you’ve been nursing this crush since you were what, twelve? You’re an impossible person to hate, so as long as you don’t make it weird, what could possibly go wrong?”

Looking at Kenny and letting his words sink in, Butters has mixed emotions. Kenny was brave, one of the bravest people he had ever met, and yet even he had been stuck in a situation similar to Butters’ own for a real long time. If even he had been afraid, what hope did Butters have?

“But Kenny, you didn’t go ahead and tell Kyle until a few weeks ago,” he points out.

“Actually, I didn’t confess to anything until after we got together. It was more of a...mutual understanding.” He winks, a sly little grin in place. “And anyway, that was different. I had a lot of things I had deal with first. But after I sorted things out, well,” he says with a shrug, “I went and got him.”

He says it as if it’s easy.

And well gee, maybe it was for someone like Kenny. Suave yet cheerful, bouncing through all types of conversations with an easy grin and words that didn’t falter.

Hands that didn’t fiddle.

A body that didn’t fidget.

Butters had a feeling it wouldn’t be quite that easy for him, but he trusted Kenny so he’d at least think about it.

***

And think about it he does.

Over the course of the next few days he thinks about what Wendy and Kenny both told him. Thinks about unfocused blue eyes and a forgotten confession. Thinks about lollipops passed from hand to hand throughout the years just to see a smile.

But in the end, it’s none of those things that cements his decision.

Instead it’s the memory of words spoken to him by a boy he’d considered his best friend for many years. A boy who might have been the picture in the dictionary under the word ‘confrontational’. Bigoted and rude, he threw insults without thinking and never uttered compliments without expecting something in return.

And yet.

_“I think you make a pretty alright hero.”_

Confrontational.

Brave.

Confident.

Someone worth knowing.

A hero.

The word had been a guiding mantra in his youth, but as he grew older it had somehow lost its meaning. Four letters without any backing. What did it mean to be a hero anyway?

Well, he remembered now. Thanks to his friends.

Thanks to them, and also to the boy in front of him, looking up in confusion from where he’s seated on the curb.

Butters smiles, as bright as he knows how, and pulls out the list he wrote the previous night.

He hands it to Stan.

“What’s this?” Stan says looking at the piece of paper now held within his hands.

“It’s a list of all the things I like about’cha.”

Or more specifically, it’s a list of thirty-three things, one full page of notebook paper. Starting with Stan’s smile and ending with the unwavering loyalty he had for the people he cared about.

“I like ya a lot, Stan,” Butters finally admits after giving the boy a few moments to skim the page.

Stan doesn’t seem to know where to look. He keeps flicking his eyes back and forth between the paper and Butters, expression a certain degree of overwhelmed.

“I-” he attempts to start before his voice breaks and he squinches his eyes shut as if to block tears.

Butters wants to hug him, but he doesn’t. Not now. Not in this moment.

Instead he just gazes at the person who has held his heart for years with all of the warmth and affection he has to give.

“You don’t gotta say nothin’ until you’re ready,” Butters tells him gently, “I’m fine with waitin’. Besides, whether ya feel the same way or not doesn’t really matter.” With a small little shrug he meets Stan’s eyes, feet firmly on the ground and arms held at his side. “I just wanted ya to know.”

And with that he turns to leave, a distinct bounce in his step that he hadn’t had for a while.

He leaves a dumbfounded Stan behind him, as well as all the uncertainty and fear resulting from a crush that had lasted far too many years. All those days spent wondering if he would be discovered. Wondering if things would be different if he only had the strength to confront people.

And so, weight finally lifted from his shoulders, Butters thumbs the lollipop in his coat pocket and looks forward to the new day.


	13. The Unsaid

Beaming through the window onto their four-person booth is the blinding rays of the mid-July sun. A few more weeks and it would be the start of their junior year of high school, and Kyle was already anticipating the influx of mind breaking academia that was sure to come.

But here, at this mediocre diner, shoulder pressed against the boy who he fell a little more in love with every day, he really couldn’t find himself worrying too much about all that.

Although...

“Shouldn’t they be here by now?” Kyle asks, eyeing the empty booth across from them in suspicion. “They better not have fucking stood us up.”

“Relax, babe.” Kyle shoots him a look for the use of the pet name and Kenny grins, knocking his shoulder against his. “Stan’s probably just having trouble getting the car, you know how his dad is.”

“I guess.” Kyle says, tone only a bit sulky. His super best friend could have at least had the mind to fucking text him if he was going to be late. Bastard-

His thoughts are interrupted by the feeling of familiar fingers intertwining with his, and he allows himself to soak in it and take a calming breath. Right. Stan’s dad was probably just being an asshole.

“You know,” Kyle says after a minute, Kenny having gone to drawing patterns on his arm with his finger, “you should have dinner with me and my parents sometime.”

Pausing his artistry, Kenny slowly looks up at him.

“...Why?”

“Because you’re my boyfriend,” he explains with a slight eye roll, tone fond and affectionate, “and ever since I told them we were dating my mom hasn’t shut up about it.”

It was the truth. An entire year after finally admitting that his orange blob of a shadow was actually his boyfriend and still he couldn’t get his mother to stop asking him. He knew Kenny always felt nervous around his parents, as if he was always being judged, but it just wasn’t something Kyle could put off anymore.

Kenny, of course, was taking the offer about as well as he’d thought he would.

“But she’s already met me,” he says quietly.

“Yeah, and she already loves you. So it’s not like you have anything to worry about.”

Despite Kyle’s best effort at comfort and optimism, Kenny still doesn’t look convinced.

“And what about your dad?”

Kyle grimaces, the thought of his father’s less than approving stares not something he ever wanted to dwell on. “Look, who gives a shit what he thinks? You know it’s nothing about you personally, right? I mean, he’s been like this since we were kids, it’s just about some stupid old problem he has with your dad.”

“And also because we’re trash,” Kenny says pursing his lips and looking away, voice several shades of bitter.

Kyle suddenly has the urge to strangle his dad.

“Kenny McCormick,” he all but growls, “don’t you dare even start with that shit. Your family is some of the nicest people I’ve ever met,” he continues, tone turning softer, “and even if they didn’t give you the best childhood they still gave the world one really amazing kid.”

When he next meets his gaze, Kenny’s eyes are sparkling. Blue like the overhead sky. Reaching up, the blond wraps his arms around his shoulders and pulls him in. “Karen is pretty great,” he quips.

“You know what I mean, you dork.”

Kyle leans in to meet him, but before their lips can connect Kenny stops, turning his head to look at something he must have spotted out of the corner of his eye.

“Wait, holy shit, is Wendy wearing a dress?!”

Kyle spares the raven-haired girl a cursory glance, but then his eyes are right back to watching Kenny. Taking in the way his eyes light up, gaze trained on the purple skirt that flowed with every step she took. “Wow,” he breathes, expression almost wistful.

It catches him by surprise how fast the pieces fit together. A small orange blob of a boy dawning an elegant purple dress and a blonde wig that sat a little crooked on the hood of his parka. The proud swaying of hips. The confident set of thin shoulders. Blue eyes sparking the same way they were now.

For a moment, Kyle remembers a princess.

He leans in and gently kisses Kenny’s cheek before pulling away. Hands falling away from Kyle’s shoulders, Kenny gives him a smile and Kyle can see the faintest tinge of a blush on his cheeks.

“Sorry we’re late.” Stan says from beside Wendy as they reach the table and begin sliding into the booth across from them, “My dad was being a dick about the car again.”

“Told you,” Kenny whispers, nudging Kyle’s shoulder with his own. Then offering Wendy a wide grin he says, “Well someone decided they wanted to impress today. That a new dress?”

“That it is,” Wendy says with a huge smile, “Butters actually helped me pick this out.”

Kenny and Kyle give each other a look.

“Uh, Butters?”

“Yeah, it was the strangest thing. He just came up to me at my locker one day and asked if I wanted to go clothes shopping with him. He’s a really sweet kid.”

“Just like that?” Kenny asks, buzzing with a quiet excitement as if he’d just found out Karen had won a talent show or something. “Just straight up asked you?”

Wendy nods with something distinctly proud in her own gaze. “He’s been a lot more self-assured lately. It’s good to see.”

Kenny seems about to say something else; although, before he does his expression slightly falls and he stops himself like he had just remembered something. Remembered just who was sitting at this table. Kyle eyes Stan who had so far remained silent and was staring down sightlessly at the menu, clearly uncomfortable.

“Hey, so are you all ready to order?”

Kyle glances up at the waitress who he hadn’t even noticed approach, and mentally thanks her for being their saving grace. In fact, the entire table seems to breathe a sigh of relief.

Not that everyone present wasn’t already aware of the truth. Kyle heard it from Stan. Kenny heard it from Butters, and Wendy was an observant eye sitting right dab in the middle. Honestly, Kyle wouldn’t have been surprised if Butters had told her himself. But to all parties, even though each of them were well aware that the five of them all knew the truth, it was an unspoken rule to say nothing on the matter. To keep it left unsaid. Kyle didn’t even talk about it with Kenny. It was too much of a fragile topic that Kyle himself wasn’t even sure he completely understood.

After Stan and Wendy say their orders, Kyle voices his usual and passes back the menu.

Next, the waitress shifts her gaze to Kenny. “And you?”

With a fond little smile aimed at Kyle, he shakes his head before slightly nodding in his direction. Kyle mirrors his smile in the presence of their own little unspoken rule that was shared between the two of them. This particular one having lasted since the days of overly-large drinks in coffee shops.

“We’re sharing.”

***

“Hey, so question. Are you and Kenny mad at me?”

Kyle shoots Stan an incredulous look. It wasn’t often that the two of them hung out on their own anymore, but Kenny had work. And so here they were, Kyle having quickly agreed to playing video games at Stan’s house. How the hell would that translate to them being mad at him?

He voices this fact to Stan.

“I don’t know,” his super best friend replies with a shake of his head. “Just thought maybe you were still a little pissed about how I acted when you guys got together.”

“Okay, first of all, that was months ago,” Kyle pauses the game and puts down his controller so he could sit back with his arms crossed and appropriately look at Stan like he was an idiot. “Second of all, I thought we’ve been through this already, why the hell would we still be mad?”

“Kenny sent me a dick pic this morning,” Stan blurts.

Not quite making sense of the words, Kyle just blinks at him as his arms fall back to his sides.

“...What?”

“It was while I was in class! I freaked out dude! I asked him later and he said it was meant for you, but I’m pretty sure he was lying. I mean, who does shit like that?” Stan rambles on and Kyle can feel his face heating up, understanding finally settling in his head. Apparently noticing his expression, Stan stops whatever he was going to say next and looks at him in question. “Kyle?”

With a laugh that sounds awkward even to his own ears, Kyle rubs at the back of his neck sheepishly. “He uh, probably wasn’t lying.”

“Dude!”

“Look,” Kyle quickly attempts to explain at the sight of the sudden horror on his best friend’s face, “he sends me nudes sometimes! He thinks it’s funny!”

“Well tell him to stop!”

He _could_ tell him to stop but...

“I mean…”

“Kyle!” Stan gawks at him as if he’s just seeing him for the first time. But not in a good way. More of the way that suggested after years of friendship he suddenly might be unable to ever look at him the same again. “Wait so does this mean you two…” he quickly shakes his head and raises his hands placatingly, “wait, nevermind forget I asked that question. I don’t want to know.”

“Well, for the record we haven’t yet.” He pauses, a smirk sliding onto his face. “Although we have gotten pretty far into third base-”

“Jesus christ!” Stan cuts him off hurriedly and Kyle breaks out into laughter. “Please stop talking, I don’t want to think about this.”

“Oh come on,” Kyle says once he gets ahold of himself. With distinct a roll of his eyes he points out, “You used to tell me about you and Wendy all the time.”

“That was completely different!”

“Yeah sure, whatever.” Kyle pauses, the previous mention of a certain girl serving as a reminder of the situation the boy in front of him was currently caught in. “Hey, but how are you and Wendy anyway?”

As if the question was a trigger, Stan’s prior horror vanishes only to be replaced by a distinct grimace.

“About the same.”

“And Butters?”

With a tired sigh and a small shadow of a smile he repeats, “About the same.”

“Dude, it’s been months.” Kyle says, switching into advice-giving-best-friend mode. “You’re going to have to give him an answer at some point.”

“I know…” He groans and falls backwards onto his floor, “but I don’t know what I even want.”

Kyle looks at his pathetic state and shakes his head.

“Honestly, I think you’re just thinking too hard about it,” he points out. “Things shouldn’t be this complicated, Stan. I mean, just look at me and Kenny. I didn’t even want a relationship. I never really did, not even when I was younger. They just seemed like so much work, you know?” He gives a shrug, but he can’t stop the warm fluttery feeling that always emerged whenever he thought of his stupid orange blob of a boyfriend. “But things with Kenny were never like that. I didn’t fall for him because I wanted to, it kind of just happened.”

Once he’s finished talking, Stan turns his head towards him with an elated smile. A hopeless romantic even in times of crisis. “You know, that’s almost exactly what Kenny had to say about it.”

Kyle smiles softly. “Yeah, he told me.”

***

When Kyle walks into the McCormick household without knocking as he’s become accustomed to, he’s greeted by Kenny’s mother who’s sitting at their beat-up kitchen table.

“Oh Kyle, Kenny ain’t back from work yet,” she tells him.

“Well, I can come back later-”

“Now don’t be silly,” she says, instantly cutting him off. “You come right over here and sit with me, I’ve been wantin’ to talk to you anyways.”

Kyle would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little intimidated to hear those words from his boyfriend’s mother. Carol McCormick seemed to like him well enough, but Kenny was always around for their interactions. He really had no idea to expect.

Still, he nods.

“Okay, yeah sure.”

Making his way over to the kitchen, he realizes that she’s sitting with what looks like a mug of tea. It’s not something he would have normally associated with her, but he was probably just being a judgemental asshole. Feeling a bit angry at himself with the thought, he pulls out the kitchen chair and sits across from her.

She smiles at him, motherly and kind, and takes a sip of her tea.

“You and Kenny been gettin’ along real well?”

“Uh yeah,” Kyle responds a bit nervous, feeling a bit like this was an interview on how good he was for her son. He finally realizes why Kenny had been so concerned about his mom wanting him over for dinner. “He’s...really incredible.”

“He is, ain’t he?” Putting down her tea she sits back in her chair. “That boy’s done more for this here family then his deadbeat father ever has.” She pauses, and when she speaks again her tone is surprisingly serious. “He’s real special, Kyle. You know that, right?”

There’s a slightly dark undertone to her gaze that Kyle knows a little too well, and for a moment he’s struck speechless.

Trapped by that too familiar gaze, Kyle looks at the women before him and for a moment all he can see is her youngest son.

Kenny sitting on his bed with that very same slightly dark look in his eyes.

Flat voice and unflinching blue.

Someone who wasn’t quite himself, experiencing the scene he was describing with every deadpan gory detail.

An offer to help.

A noncommittal shrug.

_“If that’s what you want.”_

Articles and pages of books poured over while Kenny watched him from his bed, or over his shoulder. Never helping, but watching him with a fond little smile. As if he himself had given up, yet was flattered that Kyle cared enough to try.

“Yeah,” Kyle finally answers a bit shakily, “I know.”

She nods and looks off, “All a momma wants for her babies is to see em’ happy with a good future ahead of em’. He never did have a lot growin’ up ere’ but you’ll give im’ more, won’t you?” Turning her eyes to his once more she asks, “Take care of im’?”

“Of course.”

Not an ounce of hesitation. The answer was obvious, _of course_ he would.

She smiles, that same motherly one from before, and just like that the tension that had crept into the room without him even noticing suddenly lifts.

“I knew there were a reason I liked you. You do my baby right Kyle, and you is part of this ere’ family. We don’t got much to give, but whatere’ we have is yours.”

“Thank you,” Kyle tells her, mind reeling and yet feeling a bit like crying at the motherly kindness in her words.

She nods, and then opens her mouth as if to say something before she pauses, expression thoughtful as if she’s unsure if she should proceed or not.

After a moment, she does.

“You know I never did get to tellin’ im this but-”

But then she’s interrupted by none other than the door opening. They both look towards the sound only to see Kenny walking towards them in his work uniform.

“Oh, hey, Ky,” he says as he reaches the kitchen, “You’re here early, what’d you miss me that bad?” He offers him a grin but nothing more as he seems to immediately pick up on the oddly serious atmosphere and looks between Kyle and his mother in confusion. “Everything okay?”

“Everythin’s just fine,” Carol answers to his relief. “Now why don’ you two go run off to your room now, your father should be wakin’ up soon and you know how he gets.”

That Kyle did know. Stuart McCormick, as he had quickly learned, had absolute no filter or awareness of what private information meant. He never said anything too bad, or anything that would suggest that he disapproved of their relationship.But being asked by his boyfriend’s father about the mechanics of how gay sex worked was never something that Kyle wanted to have to deal with.

Kenny nods his agreement and takes his hand.

As Kyle’s pulled away he gives one last glance to his mother, but she doesn’t look at him. Just sips her tea with a small smile and almost thoughtful expression.

He can’t help but wonder what it was she was going to say.

***

Sometimes there’s only so much a person can take.

The beginning of junior year served as the end of the time when grades held no true meaning other than a letter and some bragging rights. Served as the end of those simpler times and as the beginning to the era where Kyle was reminded that his every grade and daily decision was cementing exactly how successful he would be in his future.

A future he wasn’t even sure that he wanted yet. He was only seventeen, how the hell was he supposed to know what he wanted to do for the rest of his life? Yet here he was, buried a hundred feet under decisions, assignments, and the endless academia that was pushing him along a path even with as much as he wished he could just stay behind. At one point, in his youth, he would have fought tooth and nail to race ahead and be all that he possibly could be.

But things changed.

And now he was being torn in two separate directions and he didn’t know how to pick between them.

One path leads to law school. Following in his father’s footsteps and securing a stable and well-paying future while also challenging himself. The path his mother was endlessly pushing him towards.

The other path leads to freedom. Finding his own way, his own wants and dreams without someone spelling them out for him. The path that a certain blond with knowing eyes once showed him existed, and had been teaching Kyle about ever since.

It was a choice that, deep down, he always knew he would have to make. But he never liked to think about it, found it easier to ignore. Yet, here he was, staring college applications straight in the face and fighting between dream and logic. What he wants, and what he knows is the smartest choice.

His parents are oblivious to his inner struggle as they always are. Yet, as he sits down for dinner one night, listening to them prattle on about different schools and scholarships he should be thinking about getting a headstart on, he finds himself admitting the truth.

“Mom,” he says quietly, moving peas around his plate with his fork, “I don’t think I want to go to law school.”

The room falls silent. Tension fills the air as he feels his family’s stares boring into him, but he doesn’t look up. Doesn’t want to see the disappointment he knows must be in their eyes. Doesn’t want to see that it’s actually not disappointment, but something else. Something much worse.

Eventually, he hears the distinguished sound of silverware meeting plate, as one by one his family resumes eating.

“That’s ridiculous, bubbe,” his mother finally answers just as she always does. As if it’s second nature.

His hand tightens around the handle of his fork. A familiar flame of anger stiffening his muscles and burning straight into his bones, a side effect of never being taken seriously. Not fucking _once_.

_“That’s ridiculous, bubbe.”_

He rises to his feet.

“You know what mom, no. No, it’s not ridiculous. It’s _my_ future!” He yells, nails digging lines into his palms. “Don’t you think I deserve to have a say in it! Instead it’s always just whatever you want, whatever you think is right, but what about what I think!?”

“Kyle!” His mother stares at him in bafflement, tone rising to match his. “Of course we care what you think, we’re just trying to make sure that you don’t go and make the wrong decisions! Are we really such bad parents for that!?”

No, they were bad parents for missing the whole damn point. Even now.

They never _trusted_ him.

“You’re not listening! You never fucking listen!”

The minute the words leave his mouth, his mother rises to her feet from across the table.

So, here they were. Two flames caught in the middle of a silent storm. Ike and his father sitting silently around the edge as he and his mother yelled things at each other from across the table. Each trying to talk over each other. Kyle not even sure what she’s saying or what’s coming out of his own mouth, but he doesn’t even give a shit. He just wants her to shut up and fucking hear him.

But yet again, in a way, it was just like-

“Kyle, would you just listen to me for a minute!”

Her words finally cut straight through him and every word that once hung on the tip of his tongue vanishes into silence. Kyle’s eyes grow wide and he takes a step back, shaking his head.

His mother seems to also deflate. The two of them, one in the same.

...Just like looking into a fucking mirror.

His hands form into fists at his side. But he’s not anything like her. He _can’t_ be.

“Kyle, you know I only want what’s best for you. It might not be clear now, but one day you’ll thank me.”

He shakes his head.

“I think I’m just going to go lay down.”

“I think maybe that’s a good idea, bubbe.”

He slowly treks up the stairs as if he’s in a dream. Unable to really grasp reality as he knows it, unable to accept the realization he just had.

Walking into his room, he shuts the door behind him before mechanically walking over to his bed and collapsing. The ceiling above him might as well have been the top of the cage, his walls the bars. Every choice he has ever made, every fight he had ever fought, it all amounted to nothing. No, worse than nothing. Life was all about patterns wasn’t it? Well his parents had been in the pattern of not trusting a single damn word from his mouth for far too long to be broken. He was an idiot for ever thinking otherwise.

But that wasn’t even the worst part.

Kyle squinches his eyes shut.

And so, with shaky hands marked with indentations where his nails had been digging into his skin, he reaches into his pocket and grabs his phone.

***

Some might say that Kenny is a little too good at sneaking into his bedroom window, unnoticed by all but one.

Unknown to all the world but to the very person who never forgot to leave his window open. Who invited him over himself some nights, and welcomed him into his bed without a word on others. Not inherently intimate in nature, just to draw back the covers and hold him close until the vacant expression finally melted from Kenny’s face. Kyle knew what the vacancy of expression meant, he had kept his promise after all. But no words would be spoken unless Kenny wanted them to be. That was their deal.

And when he did talk, Kyle would listen. Listen in the same way that Kenny never failed to listen to him. Just as he was doing now.

“Do you want to know what the worst part is?” Kyle says finally, after telling Kenny everything that had happened at dinner. He hasn’t cried, not yet, but Kenny’s expression is hidden from him in the wall of tears clouding his eyes that he can’t seem to blink away even with as much as he’s tried. “Sometimes I think that if it wasn’t for you, I would have become just like her. And that terrifies me.”

“Darlin’, but I didn’t-”

“Yes you did,” he says resolutely, sitting up from where he had been lying down on his bed. “Back when we were kids. You picked up on my fear of getting left behind before even I realized I had it, and then you just fucking shrugged and walked off. And there I’d been arguing about meaningless shit my entire life, and you just came out and said the most important thing I’d ever heard in a few damn words.”

For a few moments Kenny is silent, and when he finally speaks his voice is soft.

“...You remember that?”

“Of course I do. That day you…” He pauses, trying to think of words that could even hope to convey how much that moment had changed him. Closes his eyes and allows himself to be transported back through the veil of his memory.

_“You don’t have to try so hard, you know,” a muffled voice says from behind him._

_Sparkling blue eyes from under a hood._

_Smile hidden beneath the fabric of a parka._

_A knowing gaze that spoke volumes, yet held a mystery that he needed to know the answer to._

When he opens his eyes, his tears are gone and his sight is clear.

“You changed everything.”

“Oh.” Unsurprisingly, Kenny just kind of laughs the words off. He was never too good with accepting blatant affection, as if he couldn’t quite grasp that it could possibly be true. It was one of the very few things Kyle wished he could change about him. “And here I thought you were just after me for my good looks and charming person-”

“Kenny, I love you.”

“-ality…” Kenny trails off, eyes going wide. “What did you just say?”

Kyle doesn’t mind repeating himself. He keeps their eyes locked, blue meeting unwavering green, and when he speaks his tone is resolute. He’s never spoken a more solid truth.

“I love you. Am _in_ love with you. Have been, I think for a long time.”

Kenny just stares.

“Kenny?” Kyle says with slight concern.

“I uh…” he blinks, before he moves forward and grabs Kyle by the shoulders, yanking him towards him and smashing his lips against his.

A sound he wasn’t even sure he could make emerges from Kyle’s own throat and he wraps an arm around Kenny’s back and buries his other hand in his hair as he kisses back just as fervently. Kenny makes a little sound of approval, and Kyle takes the opportunity to lick into his mouth and get lost in the familiar taste and sensation.

If he had a choice, he’d gladly get lost here for all of eternity. Lost in the feeling of Kenny’s chest pounding against his, and the feel of his skin that never failed to send pleasured tingles down his spine. Lost in the way he smelled, like the cold Colorado air mixed with something indescribable yet natural, earthly and distinctly Kenny. Lost in the way he tasted, and moved, and breathed, in and out, like he was the greatest goddamn masterpiece the world had ever seen.

Kyle moves away from his lips to travel along his jaw, to forge journeys down his neck and the beginnings of his shoulder where his shirt collar didn’t quite cover. Then he moves up again.

“Kyle, holy shit, I love you too,” Kenny gasps in between small little pleasured noises, fingers pressing into his scalp as Kyle’s lips trail back up across his neck.

Kyle laughs into his skin. “Is that you or your dick talking?”

“Well, considering I am kind of a dick-”

Kyle cuts him off, finding his mouth once again. “Oh, just _shut up_.”

Tongues meet again. A dance of power and passion. This time Kyle lets Kenny take the lead and it isn’t long before his back is pressed into his mattress while Kenny straddles him like some kind of sensual angel. Before he knows it, Kyle’s shirt is gone, and Kenny is mapping out the contours of his skin with his tongue. And for all of the times that they’ve reached this level of intimacy, it’s as if this is the first time. Less fire, and more adoration. As if he’s worshipping him with every press of lips, every calculated swipe of his tongue.

Kyle’s a dazed mess by the time Kenny’s warmth leaves him as he stands from the bed.

Reaching for him to come back, Kyle whines, “Wait what are you-”

He watches as he locks the door.

Kyle’s mouth goes dry.

“Oh.”

Kenny approaches him again, expression as soft and affectionate as he has ever seen. Without any of his normal flirtatious humor, Kenny sits on the edge of his bed and takes his hand.

“Trust me?”

Eyes locked, Kyle guides their connected hands over to Kenny’s chest, right over his heart. A strong and steady tempo, a synchronized song to that of his own. Kyle smiles and relaxes against his bed.

“Always.”

***

One thing they Kyle quickly learns, as if he hadn’t known already, is that Kenny McCormick is absolutely insatiable.

Another thing that he learns is that he’s not really that much better himself.

His mouth trails along Kenny’s jaw, leaving little open-mouthed kisses in his wake. He dips down, brushing his lips across the valley of his neck until the blond squirms beneath him and he halts his path to pay special attention to that patch of skin.

“Holy shit,” Kenny gasps, fingers tightening in his hair in approval.

Once satisfied with his work Kyle lifts his head to look his panting boyfriend in the eye.

“We should probably lock the door.”

“Can’t,” Kenny heaves, “Lock’s broken. But it’s fine, my family knows to knock and if my dad comes barging in here with a shotgun we’ll just escape through the hole in my closet.”

Kyle blinks.

“...The what?”

As if just realizing his mistake, Kenny’s eyes go wide.

“Nothing,” he says a little too quickly, trying to pull Kyle’s head back down towards his neck again.

Eyes narrowing in suspicion, Kyle is having absolutely none of it. He untangles Kenny’s hands from his hair and breaks out of his grasp despite the blond’s best effort to snatch him back.

“Ky, seriously?” He whines.

Ignoring his pleading, Kyle makes his way over to his closet and pushes aside the shaky wooden door. Almost immediately miscellaneous items topple out onto the floor, ranging from discarded clothes to a baseball bat that Kyle was a little curious as to why he still had. He steps a little further into the closet and is greeted with the stupidest thing he’d ever seen in his life. And he knew Eric Cartman, so he’s seen a lot of stupid ass shit.

“ _Kenny McCormick_!”

His voice bounces off the walls and for a brief moment he fears he might actually cause an avalanche of all the shit he has piled up along the walls. That’s actually how bad it is.

“Come on,” Kenny’s voice whines from the other room, “it’s not that big of a deal.”

“There is a fucking hole cut out of the wall! It’s covered with cardboard!”

Kyle eyes the thing incredulously, afraid that if he even touches the stupid thing it would collapse.

“Kyle, _please_ just come back to bed. It’s fine!”

Despite the distinct begging quality Kenny’s tone had taken on, Kyle is in no way letting this go. Not a fucking chance.

“This is not fine! There are homeless people who live outside your house! What if they broke in and killed you! Or what about wild animals? Or serial rapists? This is cardboard Ken, _cardboard_!”

“...I’m sorry?” Kenny tries meekly.

“I’m patching this up later.” He turns and goes to take a step to back out and almost trips on all the crap that’s lying around. It’s a Broflovski’s nightmare. “God Kenny, this thing is a mess.”

“Kyle, please I’m _dying_ over here,” he keens, not even attempting to justify his tragedy of a closet. “We can talk about my mess of a closet later.”

Stepping out and back into Kenny’s room, Kyle just stands and stares at the blond who was sitting cross-legged on his bed and looking back at him pitifully. Kyle’s gaze narrows.

“I’m organizing it.”

Kenny’s eyes widen in horror. “Now?”

“Now.”

In what’s obviously a last desperate attempt, Kenny dawns a smarmy little smile and tilts his head to gaze at him through his lashes. “Come on, you can do the closet later.” Sitting up on his knees he wiggles his hips a little. “For now you should do me.”

“No, you can wait,” Kyle says quickly, turning to the closet and rolling up his sleeves as if he was a warrior preparing for battle. “This has gone on long enough.”

Kenny falls back onto the bed in defeat with an audible groan.

The first rule of organization, as Kyle knew very well, was that in order for everything to be put in place correctly, everything needed to be taken out first. So that’s exactly what he does. Shoves items aside and picks up crap so he can dump it onto the floor behind him to be appropriately sorted through later. Only as he digs through the first layer, he quickly realizes that what was lying under everything was way worse.

“Kenny! Why the fuck is there a gun in here?!” He stares at the pistol in shock, unwilling to even pick it up.

Turning to Kenny, he waits for some semblance of an explanation; although, Kenny just smiles and shrugs sheepishly. “Self defense?”

Kyle gives him a blank look, before reaching in and pulling out the item that he had spotted lying beside it, only slightly less concerning than the literal-fucking-gun. “And the rope?”

His idiot of a boyfriend has the audacity to wink. “I can think of a few uses for that, babe.”

Torn between punching him or wrapping him up in bubble wrap for the rest of his life, Kyle settles on rolling his eyes and turning back to the closet. Of course, the next thing he spots only makes punching him seem more like a logical choice of action. Curling his nose in disgust, Kyle reaches down and gathers an impressively large stack of pornos. He shows them to Kenny with a raised brow. “Really?”

The comedian himself doesn’t even look guilty, just gets a smarmy little smile and flutters his eyelashes. “We can read them together if you want,” he simpers sweetly.

“No thanks,” Kyle pointedly drops the stack on the ground and turns away, “I’ll pass.”

As he continues tearing things out he can hear Kenny giggling, and Kyle can’t help but be frustrated at his own lack of anger. He should be more upset right? Should want to fight his stupid boyfriend who wasn’t taking anything seriously. He shouldn’t really have the sudden desire to march over there and kiss the boy senseless so he could shut him up with his tongue. That seemed counterproductive. And stupid.

With a bit more ferocity to the action then before, Kyle digs deeper into the things precariously piled along the back wall. He’s moving away a bunch of those plastic grocery store bags he was pretty sure you were supposed to throw out, when he comes across a very familiar deep purple color hidden beneath.

His heart stops.

Slowly, when his heart finally resumes its beating, Kyle reaches down and takes the fabric between his fingers as if the material itself is cursed.

The minute he emerges from the closet with the costume in his hands, he watches as Kenny’s face pales and all prior amusement drains from his expression.

“Kenny-” Kyle’s voice cracks and he swallows down a lump in his throat. “Kenny,” he starts again, “I thought you said you got rid of this.”

“No,” the blond says quietly without looking at him, “I just said I wouldn’t wear it.”

“Kenny…”

“Can you please just drop it, Ky?” Kenny snaps, voice hard in the way it always got whenever his alter ego was brought up. “I want to get rid of it, really I do, but I just can’t, okay? I really don’t want to talk about it.”

Knowing that it was sensitive topic and pushing would only cause Kenny to retreat if he wasn’t ready to talk about it, Kyle sighs and decides to just drop it for now.

“Okay, fine,” he acquiesces. “But just promise me that you won’t use it…or if you do that you’ll at least tell me first?”

“Yeah,” Kenny says softly, light returning to his eyes. “I promise.”

It was about the best he was going to be able to get at the moment. So, with movements a bit slower than they had been before, Kyle turns and goes back to rooting through his closet.

It isn’t long however before Kyle’s gaze lands on something else that causes him to freeze.

This time it’s a fabric that he hasn’t seen since his childhood. A delicate light purple and white that causes his heart to pound as if he’s ten years old again.

He pulls out the dress.

At the sight of it, Kenny’s expression softens, a faint pink appearing on his cheeks.

“Oh yeah, that.” He laughs somewhat nervously, gaze unmoving from the old costume held within Kyle’s hands. “I uh, I was going to give it to Karen but then she said she wouldn’t have been able to wear it as good as I had.” He smiles, a mirror of the way he had looked at Wendy at the diner. “And well, I couldn’t really make myself throw it away.”

Kyle doesn't say anything, understanding settling in his stomach and fluttering around like a damn horde of butterflies. The memory is still shockingly vivid. His throat feeling tight as he remembers a childhood of dungeons and dragons. Of a princess, dress and wig settled over an orange parka as she regally walked along sidewalks and backyards. Train tracks and a flower. A boy in the snow who, without even trying, had lived up to the title of being fairest in the land.

“You know,” the boy from his memory says, older now, yet still much the same, “sometimes I think about wearing one again. A dress, I mean.” He laughs a bit nervously, “Weird, right?”

“No,” Kyle says a little breathlessly picturing it, “that’s not weird at all.”

“Oh, are you uh, into that?”

Kyle rolls his eyes, but can’t keep the utterly fond smile off his face.

“I’m into _you_ , dumbass.”

Kenny’s eyes light up, looking for a moment so blatantly happy that Kyle thinks he might actually abandon his work on the closet for a while.

“And for good reason,” Kenny says, playful smirk sliding into place and geniusly ruining the moment. “I can fucking rock wearing a dress. That’s what first got you into me, wasn’t it? Couldn’t resist such a fine-ass princess.”

“Oh my god,” Kyle says turning back towards the closet. But before he gets back to work he listens to Kenny’s giggling and, still filled with affection for the stupid mood-ruining boy, he decides to at least tell him the truth. “I don’t really know when I started having feelings for you by the way,” he admits as casually as he can. “ I used to think about it a lot, but I never could figure it out. Just thought I should mention that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Kenny says softly, finally settling down and watching his boyfriend work with a contented sigh. “It was the same for me.”

***

The early morning sunlight was streaming through the window.

It illuminated the boy nestled against his side, sound asleep. Made his hair appear stark gold against the white of his pillow, and caused his skin to take on an otherworldly glow. As if he was an angel. Hell, maybe he was. Sometimes Kyle had dreams where Kenny had wings after all, wasn’t really much that could explain that.

He looks at the time and sighs, he should really get going.

However, as careful as he is to gently untangle himself from his boyfriend, Kenny has always been a light sleeper. His eyes flutter awake as he reaches for his retreating source of warmth.

“Where you goin’?” He yawns and mumbles.

“Home,” Kyle explains regretfully, “before my parents figure out I'm gone and World War Three breaks loose.”

Leaning down to kiss him before he leaves, Kyle is quickly entrapped by Kenny’s arms weaving tightly around his shoulders in a hold that remains even once their lips have separated. Without a word, Kenny rests his chin on his shoulder and tightens his hold on him. Kyle’s a little surprised, but he returns the hug just as tightly, burying his face into his neck and breathing in.

Eventually Kenny releases him, falling back onto his pillow with an affectionate smile.

“I’ll see you tonight,” Kenny says to him, tone still thick with sleep, “after work?”

Kyle nods, running a quick hand through Kenny’s mussed hair in an attempt to fix it. He knows it’s a wasted effort since he’s only going back to sleep anyway, but it’s a habit and he never ignores an excuse to do it.

“My window will be open,” he says after a moment, finally retracting his hand.

“Good,” Kenny says, eyes falling closed and smiling contentedly as he buries a little further into what remained of Kyle’s body heat.

Kyle lingers for a few more moments, wanting to stay and curl up with him more than he wanted anything. But his parents were still thankfully oblivious to their shenanigans, and Kyle would very much like to keep it that way. Tearing his eyes away from his peacefully sleeping boyfriend, Kyle finally rises from the bed and gathers his things.

Softly shutting Kenny’s bedroom door behind him, he makes his way through the quiet house on his way to leave. Only before he reaches the front door he’s stopped by a voice.

“Hey, Kyle.”

He turns and offers the youngest McCormick child a smile.

“Hey, Karen, what are you doing up so early?”

“It’s Sunday,” she points out, “us Catholics have church.”

“Oh, right...” he says glancing at the door to Kenny’s bedroom, “I forgot.”

She nods, following his gaze. When she next speaks her voice is soft, as if she’s afraid someone might hear her even in the safety of her own home.

“You know, Kenny doesn’t believe in religion, least not anymore.” With a pause, she removes her gaze from her brother’s door and meets Kyle’s eyes with the same McCormick wisdom and intensity that he had come to know. “But he believes in you.”.

It’s such a powerful statement and so unexpected that Kyle is sincerely struck speechless. He grapples for words, opening his mouth and closing it again, but only comes up blank.

Karen laughs at him and crosses her arms, eyeing him almost as if she was sizing him up. “You be good to him Kyle, he needs you. And if you break his heart, I won’t hesitate to kick your ass.”

“Karen!” He nearly chokes on his surprised laugh, knowing her threat was probably serious and yet not worried in the least. He had no intention of breaking Kenny’s heart. Not in this lifetime. “But yeah I know, you’re a good sister.”

With a playful smirk, she relaxes her stance, thus signaling the end of their little conversation.

“Hell yeah I am, and don’t you forget it.”

***

“You know I’ve been thinking.”

Kenny lifts himself from where he’d been lying across his stomach to peer down at his face. “About?”

“Just life things I guess,” Kyle says, biting his lip. Nervous to begin this conversation and not really sure why. “I’ve been thinking about going to university and studying pre-law,” he admits eventually. “That way I don’t have to commit to anything right away, but I can still go to law school if I want to later. Then if I do decide to major in something else I might need to take some extra courses, but it can’t hurt to try, right?”

Kyle looks to Kenny, realizing that his opinion on this mattered to him a lot more than he had anticipated.

But Kenny doesn’t really comment on his well thought-out plans. Instead a small frown crosses his features as he simply says, “You don’t sound too excited about it.”

“Yeah,” Kyle exhales, knowing fully well that what he’d did was make a compromise. “But my parents seem alright with it, and i think it’s about time I found some middle ground.”

In response Kenny just nods, expression a mix of things that Kyle doesn’t have time to figure out before the blond drops back down against his side.

“Yeah…” He says after a moment, face hidden from view as he begins aimlessly drawing patterns on Kyle’s stomach with his index finger.

Confused by his boyfriend who had apparently decided to start playing coy, Kyle takes a moment to think and it isn’t long before a very certain thought strikes him.

“Hey,” he says, voice quiet, “you are going to college, right?”

The blond just continues drawing patterns on his stomach and doesn’t answer.

“Kenny?”

“Yeah Ky,” he says quietly, stopping his drawing only to nestle and further hide his face into his side. “Right after Karen.”

It’s about the best answer he could expect, so Kyle just runs a hand through Kenny’s hair and sighs.

***

The minute Kyle walks into the McCormick household it’s to the sound of intensive coughing.

He’s rushing into action not a moment later, running over to where his eyes had spotted Kenny’s mother half curled over on the floor in a coughing fit. Kneeling down next to her he tries patting her back only for her to wave him away as her coughs begin to slow.

“Mrs.McCormick?” he asks as she attempts sharply inhaling to regain her breath. “Hold on, Kenny should be walking in any minute and-“

“No!” Her voice is scratchy, but her eyes and tone are hard enough to halt his words. “No Kyle, you can’t tell Kenny.” She closes her eyes, taking several deep breaths, and when she opens them again Kyle can’t help but be shocked by the strength and intensity of her expression. “I’ll be alright.”

“But you need-“

“No.” she repeats adamantly, shaking her head. “My boy likes to take everything on himself. Don’t you give him this too. Promise me?”

He can’t quite believe her words, can’t quite believe the decision she’s making him make. Kyle needs more time to think about this, yet as he stares at her the sudden sound of the front door opening and then closing fills the silence between them.

Kenny.

Kyle takes a deep breath.

“Okay,” he says quietly, closing his eyes and sealing his fate, “I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya! Just wanna take a minute to thank everyone who commented last chapter, it really helped keep me motivated and I love you all. Also, I blame this being late to the fact that I decided to start a Cyborg Kenny and Bounty Hunter Kyle au that I totally posted when this chapter should have been posted... heh, well hopefully the pure amount of fluff in this chapter makes up for it :D


	14. The Time Passes

Kenny wakes up to the sound of his shitty alarm clock. He groans, turning the thing off and seeing that the time was about a half hour earlier than he would normally have to get up for school. But it’d been necessary, Kyle was gone for a week and since he was usually his and Karen’s ride to school, the two of them would need to add walking time into their schedules.

Getting out of bed, Kenny wanders to his closet, gazing at it with a soft smile. True to his word Kyle had organized the entire thing, even going as far as getting rid of a bunch of his old ripped up clothes and bringing over a pile of his own that he swore he didn’t wear anymore. Kenny had a feeling he was a dirty liar, because he’d definitely seen him wear about half the things he’d given him multiple times in the past year alone. Yet, there was also something strangely comforting about having constant access to his boyfriend's clothes, so he’d accepted them without much complaint.

Grabbing a pair of Kyle’s jeans from the shelf along with one of his shirts from one of the coat hangers, Kenny pulls them on without a problem. Although Kyle was quite a bit taller than him, they were still about the same clothing size. It was also a little weird wearing clothes that weren’t covered in holes and old stains, but they were quality fabric and came with the added bonus of reminding him of Kyle. So, suffice to say, he hardly wore his own clothes anymore.

Well...for the most part.

He grabs his orange hoodie, a gift Stan had given him for his birthday to replace his old beat up parka one year, and slides it over Kyle’s shirt.

A stop to the bathroom later, Kenny walks into his kitchen to be greeted by Karen who had probably been up and getting ready about an hour before he did. His mother turns away from the sink and gives him a tired smile, bags dark and heavy under her eyes. He knew for a fact she hadn’t been sleeping well lately, but she denied it every time he would ask her. Not much else he could do if she said she was fine.

Returning her smile, he settles down at the table and pours a small amount of cereal into the bowl that had been set down for him by his mom. His parents might have never been the best parents, especially in his younger years, but they weren’t bad people. Made a lot of bad decisions, especially when under the influence. But as they grew older, and after some encouragement from Mysterion through the years, things had gotten better. Not perfect, but better.

Kenny could live with that.

He supposed no one really had perfect parents, especially not in this town. Butters, Stan, Cartman...they all had problems growing up. Even Kyle, for as motherly as Sheila was to Kenny nowadays, had been an overbearing nightmare of a parental figure. Still was, all things considered. Hence the walking ball of stress and anxiety Kyle had become within the first few months of their senior year.

Kenny frowns.

Wasn’t senior year supposed to be different?

More parties? More freedom, or something? Instead it was already November and Kenny had been to a total of zero parties and instead had been watching his boyfriend fret over scholarship and college applications like it was his job. And there was really only so much Kenny could do for him. He could help him relax, sure. But he couldn’t make it go away, not even with as much as he might have wanted to.

Finishing up their miniscule breakfast, Kenny walks outside with Karen and is surprised to see Stan parked outside of his house.

Stan smiles at him from the driver’s side while Butters waves to him from the passenger seat.

“Heya, Kenny! Mornin’ Karen!”

They both greet the cheerful blond before Kenny leans down to rest his arms on the rolled down window, giving Stan a questioning look.

“Kyle asked me to pick you guys up while he’s away,” Stan explains.

He really should have known.

“Of course he did,” he says with a small smile before sliding into the back seat after Karen. “You know,” he says, “you could have just texted me and picked me up about a half hour later. Did you want to surprise me that badly?”

Stan scoffs, putting the car into drive and pulling onto the road. “Don’t flatter yourself, I always leave at this time. Butters likes getting to school early.”

Before Kenny can even respond, Butters is suddenly talking, voice several shades of concerned.

“Gee Stan I didn’t know you were just doing it for me, if ya wanted-”

“No,” Stan quickly interrupts him, “I’m not just doing it for you. It’s fine, okay?”

“Oh, alrighty then.”

A few moments pass in a semi-awkward silence before Butters reaches over to turn up the radio volume. Not a moment later he’s singing along to some pop song while Stan periodically shoots him amused looks and appears to be trying hard not to laugh.

Giving Kenny a look, Karen scoots over and whispers hurriedly in his ear, “Do you see the way they’re looking at each other?! That’s _love_ , Kenny!”

“Shh, Karen please, not now,” Kenny whispers back to her but ends up having to muffle his giggles at the sight of the pure disapproval she kept aiming at the back of Stan’s seat.

As it were, Karen had been a giant supporter of Stan and Butters getting together ever since the days when Butters would come over and play dolls with her and she found out he had a crush. The girl was completely biased since Kenny was pretty sure she hadn’t ever met Wendy, but she had been crushed when she’d found out that Stan had ultimately decided to stay with his girlfriend in the end.

Quite frankly, everyone had been surprised when they heard the news. Kenny had heard both Stan and Butters’ sides of the story, and both had said relatively the same thing.

_“It didn’t seem planned or nothin’” Butters tells Kenny, a small smile on his face as he recounted the tale. “And he was awfully nice about it and everything. Said that list I made him meant a whole lot to him, but that he thought it’d be better if we went and stayed friends.”_

And so they did. They were as close as ever in fact. But Karen wasn’t wrong, the looks they kept sending each other told a far different story. A softness of expression paired with a genuine happiness that would sometimes fade into a downward tilt of the lips as if just remembering their situation. One that Kenny was in no place to prod at. He’d asked and they’d told him all that they wanted to tell. Besides, with all the double dates him and Kyle had with Stan and Wendy he’d gotten to know the girl and it wasn’t exactly hard to see what Stan saw in her. She was brilliant, passionate, and beautiful, with a certain hotheadedness when it came to things that she cared about. She was….a lot like Kyle actually.

Kenny snickers. He’d have to point that out to Kyle when he got back.

“What’s so funny?” Karen asks him quietly, voice almost being drowned out in the mixture of pop music and off-key singing.

“Was just thinking about how Wendy and Kyle are a lot alike.”

Karen seems to think this over. Since she also happened to be a large supporter of a one Kyle Broflovski dating her older brother, comparing him to the faceless girl that she’d made a sworn enemy of probably wasn’t the easiest thing to fathom.

“I still hate her,” she whispers back eventually.

Kenny pats her shoulder. “I know you do.”

A few minutes later, Stan is pulling into a parking space. They all get out, Kenny parting with Karen before making his way across the parking lot towards the school.

“Wait, Kenny!” Stan calls after him, and Kenny slows his steps as Stan hurries to catch up with him, Butters lagging a little behind them both.

“I know Kyle isn’t here,” Stan says, “but I was wondering if you still want to have our movie night tonight?”

Kenny hesitates, the idea of a movie night without Kyle being there suddenly not sounding that appealing. He could probably take an extra shift at work instead, or...do something. It was only going to be the two of them anyway because as much as they all loved Butters, movie night had always been a thing just between the three of them. Adding another person, especially now, just because Kyle wasn’t around would feel too much like replacing him.

Not that anyone could ever replace Kyle.

Still...would saying no still count as ditching Stan?

Biting his lip, Kenny says slowly, “How about I just come over and we can hang out? Just talk or something,” he shrugs, “we haven’t talked one on one in a while.”

Stan nods and bumps his shoulder. “Sure we can have a bro night.”

Kenny tries his best not to laugh at his use of terminology, and also his implication that Kyle counted as a girl. “Yeah, sure dude.”

“Awesome, I’ll catch you later then,” Stan says before halting his steps to let Butters catch up with him. After giving them a quick glance, Kenny continues his way into the school. Making his way throughout the hallway he finds his feet taking him on their own accord to Kyle’s locker. He stares at it for a moment, mentally hitting himself for automatically going along with his normal routine, and then heading in the other direction to his own locker.

Still, he supposed he wasn’t too surprised at the mistake. Kyle was always around, so it was always more than a little shocking on the days where he was sick or absent. So much of Kenny’s daily routine was dependent on him being there. And with that thought, Kenny can’t help but wonder what Kyle did on the days that he’s not around. His deaths took him away from the living world, sometimes days at a time, after all. Although, he also knows for a fact that those days having been growing more infrequent as of late.

It was a strange thing, one with little explanation. Probably more coincidence than anything. But his deaths didn’t occur as often as they used to, in fact the last time he died had to have been weeks ago.

Maybe his curse was growing weaker.

He scoffs.

As if. It was probably just good old fashioned dumb luck.

Opening his locker he takes out his books he’d need for the day. Despite his frequent absences and heavy work schedule, over his high school years he’d managed to stay in higher level classes. With Kyle’s help, of course. In Kenny’s opinion, Kyle believed in him a little too much sometimes. Still, thanks to his persistent tutoring and...motivational study sessions, Kenny was maintaining decent grades.

It was probably unhealthy how much of his life revolved around Kyle Broflovski.

With a sigh, Kenny digs his phone out of his pocket and decides to send his boyfriend a text.

_hows cali?_

He sends it, and just for a moment he hopes that Kyle will reply saying that he hates it. Hates it enough to never want to go back.

But a few moments pass and Kyle doesn’t answer even though Kenny knew he was usually one to always answer texts immediately.

With another sigh, Kenny pockets his phone and continues down the hallway.

***

At lunch, not exactly in the mood to deal with Stan and Butters flirting that wasn’t ‘actually’ flirting, he decides to go visit Cartman in the library. The fatass was always there nowadays, so much that he could probably claim the place as his own. He the evil king, and the dust ridden shelves his kingdom.

Kenny scoffs.

Hell, maybe that _was_ what he was doing. No one knew what the fuck else he was doing there.

“Hey, fatass,” he greets, sliding into the chair across from him.

Cartman looks up from whatever he was reading and gives him a half surprised and half annoyed look.

“Kinny? What the hell do you want?”

“Keep talking like that and I might start thinking that you care.” Kenny quips, slouching across the table and reaching for one of Cartman’s many bags of chips. “Haven’t seen you around.”

“Not my problem.” Cartman says, swatting his thieving hands away from his horde of food. “You’re the one who’s always sucking face with the damn Jew.”

Kenny’s lips quirk upward in a sly little smile, unable to resist the opportunity. “That’s not the only thing I’ve been sucking.”

“Aye fucking sick!” Cartman exclaims, athough to his benefit also manages to keep his voice low enough not to garner too much attention from the other library occupants.

Kenny bursts into giggles which he attempts to muffle to the best of his ability. Cartman shakes his head.

“Seriously, why are you here?”

“Uh, I don’t know? I think we might be friends or something,” Kenny rolls his eyes, “for some weird-ass reason.”

Cartman scoffs but doesn’t outright seem to disagree with the statement.

“What have you been doing back here anyway?” Kenny asks, leaning over to look at the book titles. Most of them geography or travel based books. Probably for a project, if he had to guess. “You scheming something or what?”

“Jesus fucking christ, why is everyone all over my dick all of a sudden?”

“Believe me, they’re not,” Kenny smirks as he sits back in his seat. “You just don’t have the best track record for not being an asshole.”

In response to his words, he receives a pointed glare. Still, after he seems to think it over for a moment, Cartman does give him an answer.

“I’m graduating early. There, happy?”

Kenny blinks at him. Not quite believing that all of his odd behavior could be boiled down to something so laughably simple.

“Why?”

Giving him a smug look, Cartman crosses his arms and leans back in his chair. “Well, wouldn’t you like to know.”

“You do realize that I trust you about as far as I can throw you.” Kenny points out. “Which isn’t very far.”

He receives a pointed scowl in response.

“Screw you, po’boy.”

Their conversation falling into silence, Kenny pulls out his phone and checks it, frowning when he sees Kyle still hasn’t responded. For a moment he pictures him sitting in some coffee shop, laughing with some guy who would be going to a college in the area. Tall and with a bank account that could afford to take Kyle out on dates like he deserved. Someone with a future. Someone who was worth something.

“Kahl?”

Kenny nods slowly in confirmation, attempting to clear his head of unwelcome thoughts. “He and his mom went to look at colleges in California.”

Cartman seems to mutter something about hippies before shaking his head. “Was wondering why the two of you weren’t out humping in the hallways or whatever the hell you assholes do.”

Kenny forces a grin although he knows it falls short. “I’d be willing to tell you exactly what we do if you wanted.”

“I swear I will cut your dick off, po’boy.”

He smiles at the empty threat, but as he’s still illogically bothered about Kyle’s lack of responding, Kenny suddenly isn’t much in the mood for talking. Standing from the table, he says, “Great, well on that note I think I’m gonna get going. As fun as this has been.”

However, as soon as he turns to leave he’s stopped again by Cartman.

“Hey, Kinny?” He says, tone sounding strange and Kenny turns back around to face him. “How’s Butters?”

“Butters?” Kenny says, tilting his head slightly in confusion. “Uh fine I guess, why?”

Cartman shrugs, avoiding his eyes and being strangely silent. Then again Kenny knew the two of them used to be close, so he supposed it wasn’t all that weird of a question.

“He’s been good,” Kenny embellishes with a shrug of his own. “Gained a lot of confidence lately, which somehow managed to make the kid even happier.”

Cartman looks up and Kenny watches as a train of emotions passes through his gaze. Surprise turning melting into anger, something like the old jealousy that Cartman used to always get before ‘fixing’ things with one of his terrible plans. But then that fades into an emotion that was almost resigned. Acceptance and deep-seated regret contorting his expression into something profoundly vulnerable and human for a brief moment before he attempts to mask it with his signature smug grin.

“Well, it’s about fucking time,” he says just as he always would. But Kenny knows what he saw, and he wouldn’t be so easily fooled. Still, he doesn’t know what to make of it, Eric Cartman was always a bit of a terrible mystery even with as good as Kenny was at reading people.

So, he lets it go. Giving Cartman one last nod before walking out the library and leaving him behind once more.

***

After school Kenny heads straight over to Stan’s house. ‘Bro night’ apparently consisting of the two of them raiding the kitchen before making their way up to Stan’s room where they talked about whatever topics came to mind. It keeps Kenny’s mind off things for a while, but he can only get so far into hearing Stan talk about football before his mind once again starts to drift.

“So random question,” Kenny blurts eventually, cutting off whatever Stan had been saying, “but do you believe everything happens for a reason?”

Stan blinks at him, seeming thoroughly confused at the turn in conversation.

“What, like fate?”

Kenny shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

“I mean, well yeah.”

He figured Stan would, fate and hopeless romanticism walked hand in hand after all. It’s why he bothered bringing it up in the first place.

Pulling at the fibers of Stan’s carpet, Kenny gives a humorless laugh. “Kyle doesn’t. He believes everyone has full control of what happens in their lives, and if you lose that then you just keep fighting until you change things.”

“And you?”

“I don’t know,” Kenny admits after a pause. “I’ve always wanted to believe what Kyle believed, because it’s a nice thought, you know?” He gives a small shrug, the carpet soft beneath his fingers. “But it’s hard. Sometimes I think that the world just does whatever the fuck it wants. Like it has this grand plan and if we try going against that,” he heavily exhales, “then we just end up miserable.”

For a moment Stan is silent, then almost carefully he asks, “What’s all this coming from?”

“Do you think the world is trying to tear me and Kyle apart?” Kenny blurts, all of unwanted thoughts rushing forward into words. “Do you think he’d be happier if-“

“Okay, stop right there,” Stan interrupts, successfully stopping Kenny from saying what hurt him to even think about. “You and Kyle love each other and he _is_ happy dude. Don’t you even dare try to ruin a good thing. Besides,” he says a bitter grin sharpening his expression, “believe me, if the world was trying to tear you apart, you’d know.”

Kenny gives him a questioning look and Stan sighs.

“Look,” Stan says slowly, “don’t tell anyone this, but I didn’t really give Butters an answer. Well, I mean I did, but it wasn’t exactly a no.”

For a moment Kenny can only stare at him, thoroughly shocked at what he just heard.

“...What?”

Stan takes a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose as of preparing for something he really would rather not talk about. “I couldn’t lie to him, because I do like him, a lot.” Stan’s gaze flickers to a certain point in his room and Kenny follows his line of sight to two sheets of paper sitting on his bedside table. “So, I told him the truth, I said that maybe if it wasn’t for Wendy...then maybe we could have been something. But I _love_ her.” Stan’s eyes light up with a certain kind of fire, something that spoke of a million dreams of an endlessly hopeless romantic. “We’ve come this far, and if she’s still willing to try then so am I. Our relationship has never been easy, but that just means we have to try harder. You know?”

His voice quiets at the end, turning his speech into more of a question. As if he was looking for approval.

More out of pity than anything, Kenny slowly nods and relief flickers over Stan’s expression.

“If that’s what you wanted.”

Stan doesn’t answer. And Kenny finally decides to stand and make his way over to look at the two sheets of paper he’d spotted him looking at. Stan doesn’t stop him as Kenny skims over them, the one on top a sheet of notebook paper that Kenny realizes must be the list that Butters left for him. The second one is an old yellowed sheet of paper, with sloppy writing as if a young child had written it. Written on the top, in what appears to be black crayon, are the words: _marry Wendy Testaburger_.

Glancing back at Stan, the boy just shrugs before lowering his gaze to the floor as if embarrassed. Kenny looks back to the two lists and his lips curve downward in a frown. He wouldn’t say it, because he really had no idea how deep Stan’s feelings for Wendy really ran, but what he did know was that, of the two lists, one held concrete fact and affection while the other was just a faded piece of paper with a childish fantasy.

Kenny doesn’t have a clue why he’s still hanging onto it.

***

The thing about not dying for a while is that it’s easy to get used to it. The feeling of walking around and not getting hit by a car. Of hearing distant gunfire and being able to live to hear its end. Of living.

Then, it happens again and everything returns. The recollection of the pain that clings to the skin and resounds through the bones. The faint hope that maybe the curse might have packed its bags and went to torture someone else. The fear.

Kenny wakes up to the sight of his same old ceiling just as he has countless times before. His skin new and unmarked, his orange hoodie miraculously unbloodied. Through the thin walls he can hear his mom coughing, which wasn’t really all that unusual. He supposed long term substance abuse did that to you. With a sigh he glances at the clock and realizes that just over five hours have passed since he got ran over a car in the parking lot after school. Five hours. Gone. For a moment he wonders just how many hours of his life he’s lost, of those times it took days even weeks for him to return. Wonders if there will ever be a day where he just...won’t wake up.

Or worse. If this was really all there was, an eternity of waking up to this. Never dying. Outliving everyone he cared about.

With a steep inhale he sits up, preparing to go over Kyle’s house, when he stops himself.

Right. Kyle wasn’t home.

He grabs his phone instead and looks to see Kyle had replied to his earlier message a few hours ago.

_Hey, sorry it took me so long to respond, it’s been a long ass day. But Cali’s nice. A hell of a lot different from South Park._

And for a moment, he’s angry.

Angry about how Kyle’s out there enjoying himself while Kenny is breaking apart. About how he left him. About how he’ll come back only to leave him again for longer next time.

About how much he needs him here.

Not knowing how to respond outright to what he sent, Kenny goes ahead and sends something different. Something that might help start a conversation that will take his mind off things.

_tell me what you’d do to me if u were here ;)_

Not even a minute after he hits send, his phone rings. Seeing that it was Kyle, his heart skips a beat as he hits accept and presses the phone tightly against his ear.

“Kenny, what’s wrong?” Kyle says immediately.

Kenny takes a moment just to appreciate the sound of his voice, the sound of it alone doing wonders to his mood.

“What do you mean?” He breathes out eventually.

“You know exactly what I mean.” Kyle responds sharply, but Kenny knows it’s just because he’s worried. “You didn’t respond to my text earlier and now you’re obviously looking for a distraction.”

Honestly, sometimes it was a little scary how well Kyle knew him. Then again, if asked he could probably fill several thousand pages with facts about Kyle. Guess that’s what happened when you spent most of your life with someone.

“Died again,” he admits, voice quiet and fragile even to his own ears.

 _And I’m scared of how much I depend on you always being here_ , he mentally adds. But doesn’t say it. Doesn't want Kyle to worry any more than he is already.

“How bad?” Kyle responds just as quietly.

“It’s been worse.”

For a moment there’s silence. And Kenny closes his eyes, just wishing he would talk already.

“It’s been a while since it happened,” Kyle says finally, “hasn’t it?”

“...Yeah.”

Kenny looks up, measuring the time that has passed on the clock.

“Ky I have to go,” he tells him, voice soft. “I only have so many minutes on this thing.”

Seconds. Minutes. Always counting down.

He can hear Kyle heavily exhale. “I know. I’m only here for one more night, then I’ll be back and we can do whatever you want, okay?”

It’s a perfect opening and yet Kenny doesn’t even have the energy to make a joke.

“Okay.”

“I love you,” Kyle says softly.

Kenny closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

“Love you too.”

Then the line goes dead and he’s once again left alone with his thoughts.

***

A few days later that might have actually been years, Kyle finally comes home. Kenny is waiting for him over at Stan’s house where Kyle said he’d go and meet them as soon as he got back to his house. The two of them are watching old Terrance and Phillip reruns in relative silence when the front door opens.

“Hey dudes, sorry I’m late.” Kyle says stepping into the room and Kenny’s breath catches, eyes immediately taking him in. “Got held up at the airport.”

Kenny has to immediately resist the urge to run over to him. A few days, a few lousy days and here it felt like he’d been gone years. It was ridiculous. And so, he can’t do anything but stare as Kyle gives him a smile, looking entirely unfazed. Because why would he be? It’d been a few fucking _days_.

“Hey,” Stan greets him with a lazy smile. “How was your trip?”

“It was fine,” Kyle says with an easy shrug. “My mom was annoying as usual, but the colleges were nice.”

At his words, a pang of hurt settles in Kenny’s chest, but he squashes it down. Instead, he focuses on the fact that Kyle was here, now, and was finally making his way over to the couch where Kenny was sitting.

“You have a first choice school?” Stan asks him next.

“Not yet,” Kyle says, returning the hug that Kenny had pulled him down into. “I’ll probably send applications to all of them and then just compare costs.”

Then, after giving Kenny a quick kiss, he slides from his tight grasp and settles down on the sofa in the space between his best friend and his boyfriend.

“Yeah dude,” Stan was saying, “I’m doing the same thing.”

Kenny blocks out the rest of their conversation as they prattle on about college expenses and the perks of living off campus instead of dorming. Instead, he nestles into Kyle’s side as he talks, resting his cheek against his shoulder. Knowing well as anything that he should be happy for him, more invested in where he’ll be going in less than a year from now. But he can’t. Kyle wraps an arm around him, drawing him in closer, and for a moment it’s like everything is right with the world again.

But up on the wall the clock is still ticking.

And not even for a moment does it stop.

***

The rhythm of the days is unmatched by any tempo. A quick and rapid succession of rising suns and waning moons that mark the flow of days that, once gone, will never come back. Kenny holds onto Kyle with two hands. Kisses him more desperately as the days go on, and rarely spends nights alone anymore. It is a blessing as well as a curse. Because as much as he tries to lie to himself, the inevitability of departure hovers above them like a dark and merciless cloud and he knows that every bit of happiness with Kyle will just make the loneliness after he’s gone all that much harder to bare.

As it were, the days have a habit of bleeding into each other, and it’s on one of these days that Kenny runs into Cartman when walking home from work.

“Oh hey dude,” Kenny says without a thought before really taking in his appearance. “Woah, are you crying?”

Cartman shoots him a watery glare as he walks by, but there doesn’t seem to be any fire behind it. He seems to hesitate, his steps faltering for a moment, before he shakes his head and just keeps on going without a word. Kenny watches as he goes, confused by his strange behavior, when he turns his attention to another voice.

“Oh, heya Kenny!”

Butters waves to him from the front step of his house. With a wave of his own, Kenny crosses the lawns of a few houses until he reaches the smiling blond’s front step.

“Leo, did something happen with Cartman?”

“Huh?” Butters says, glee turning to genuine confusion. “Well golly I dunno, Kenny. He just came by sayin’ he had something real important to tell me. But then he just told me I needed to go and cut my hair and then went and left. But I don’t think my hair’s all that bad, is it?”

Kenny shakes his head, it looked the same as it always did. Something was definitely off. “He came all the way here just to tell you that?”

“Yep. It was awfully unusual of im’, specially’ since he hasn’t stopped by in a while.” Butters frowns. “But he seemed to be an real big rush to get to leavin’ so I didn’t want to bother im’ by askin’.”

Looking down the street to where Cartman had vanished, Kenny runs a hand through his hair and releases a tired sigh. He’d had a long day at work and now he really just wanted to go home.

“I don’t know, Leo,” he says turning back to him. “Maybe we can ask when we see him tomorrow.”

“Sounds good!” Butters says with a smile, taking a backwards step towards his front door. “Gnight, Kenny!”

Kenny says his goodnight and then walks on home, pushing the weird situation with Cartman from his mind. It was probably just him being a crazy asshole again, nothing to worry about.

And that night as Kenny and the rest of the town sleeps, Eric Cartman gets on a bus and finally leaves all of South Park behind him without looking back.


	15. The Dream

It was a beautiful day.

Wendy softly smiles at the world sitting outside the library window. Looks out at the sun shining over the world that was warming the land under its rays. From underneath the trees she could see scattered shadows that dusted across the ground below, moving along with the slight breeze that would pass every so often. And in the distance the horizon stretched out before her. The promise of a world that existed outside of this small mountain town. The promise of places that she’d only ever seen in pictures and in the heart of her most pleasant dreams.

“Wendy, are you even listening?”

Inner musings now interrupted, Wendy turns her attention back to her best friend who was looking at her with sheer exasperation.

“What?” Wendy asks Bebe, trying to focus back on reality. Realizing that she’d been completely ignoring the other girl, she releases a small breath before offering an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

Bebe rolls her eyes, going back to picking at her chipped red nail polish. “I said I saw Butters and Stan going to the movies together last night. Don’t you even care?”

And of course Bebe was back on the topic of Stan and Butters. How was she not surprised? When Wendy speaks she makes sure to keep her tone casual, hoping she might get lucky and Bebe would just drop it.

“So what? They’re friends.”

Bebe flicks her gaze up from her nails to fix her with the rise of a perfectly plucked brow, and a proper dumbfounded expression.

“Wends.”

Wendy sighs, slinking down in her seat. “What do you want me to do Bebe? Tell him who he can and can’t see?” She huffs out a breath and flicks a small ball of paper across the table with her finger. “Stan would never cheat on me, and even if he tried Butters would never let him.”

“Okay,” Bebe says, jabbing a nail file in Wendy’s direction as if it was a pointer, “and what happens when he decides to dump your ass for fucking Butters Stotch?”

She bites her lip and trails her finger along a swirl someone had drawn on the table. “Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” she says softly.

Bebe freezes before looking up at Wendy with utter disbelief.

“You haven’t told him yet,” she states dryly.

“No,” Wendy answers, tone still remarkably quiet. “Not yet.”

Bebe exhales a long breath. “For someone who’s smart as hell, you sure can be pretty dumb. You’re running out of time you know.”

“I know. And I will tell him. I’m just...waiting for the right time.”

Bebe looks like she’s about to say something else, when her gaze lifts to someone approaching their table. “Hey Kyle,” Bebe greets, when the redhead places his books at the seat across from her. “Where’s your other half?”

“Kenny and Stan are talking with Butters in the cafeteria,” Kyle explains, as he plops down into a seat. It doesn’t escape Wendy’s notice just how exhausted he sounds when he speaks, as if everyone has gone insane and he just wants things to return to the way they were.

“He’s still upset about Cartman?” Wendy asks him with slight surprise. It’d been a little over a week since Cartman had vanished, and she’d at least thought that things would have been better enough to warrant Kyle being able to stay at his own lunch table. As apparently Kyle was not someone who could ever be considered comforting and thoughtful whenever Eric Cartman was concerned.

“You know how Butters is,” Kyle says with slight frown and a shrug, “he blames himself for it.”

Wendy nods, because she does know.

“And Kenny?”

Her question immediately earns her a frown as well as a slight grimace from Kyle. “He acts like he’s fine,” he answers slowly, “but I know deep down it bothers him. Maybe he didn’t necessarily like Cartman, but the two of them were friends.”

Something in the way he phrases it strikes Wendy as odd. Reminds her of the early days of her and Stan, when the two of them would lounge around with Kyle, Kenny and Cartman. In a way it felt like another lifetime, but that still didn’t change history.

“You were all friends, Kyle.”

She’d spoken the words softly, and to her surprise Kyle seems to consider them before nodding slowly. “I think he just feels abandoned,” he continues, although his tone had turned more somber. A bit more understanding. “Fucking fatass didn’t even think to tell him.”

“Maybe he was just afraid to,” Wendy says automatically, without thinking.

Predictably, at her words both of her friends look at her as if she’d gone insane. Bebe shooting her gaze up from her nails for the first time since Kyle had gotten there, and Kyle’s prior understanding vanishing without a trace.

“I mean,” she attempts quickly explaining herself, “I’m not defending him or anything, but it’s probably hard to tell people you care about that you’re planning on leaving town forever.”

Her gaze drops down to the table, but not before she catches Bebe’s knowing look. But she wouldn’t say anything, not with Kyle here.

She can hear Kyle’s disbelieving scoff breaking the sudden silence.

“You do realize we’re talking about Cartman, right? That asshole only ever cared about himself.”

“Maybe, but maybe not,” she says tracing the swirling pattern with her finger again. Pretends it’s a road, curved and unending with a path that only ever led back to the beginning. “It’s also possible that maybe he was afraid that no one would care if he did say something.” She shrugs, glancing back up at Kyle. “You weren’t exactly around Kyle, but I’ve spent a lot of my lunch periods here while he sat at that table over there alone.”

Simultaneously all three of them flick their gazes over to a table two away from theirs. Empty now, yet she wonders if she were to walk over there, if there would still be traces of cheesy poof dust stuck in the creases of the table. Somehow, she’s a little afraid to find out.

They all look away and Kyle releases a long breath. “I guess,” he says. “Either way, he should have told Kenny.”

Wendy flinches, Bebe’s earlier words running through her head. Secrets were never good to keep, she knew that. But her situation was different.

Wasn’t it?

“Hey so,” Wendy starts, immediately attempting to change the subject. Scanning the table, her eyes land on the open folder sitting in front of Kyle. “What are you working on? More scholarship apps?”

Kyle shakes his head. “Haven’t really been in the mood to do them.”

Something in his tone strikes her as bitter. Off from usual. Inspecting his face a little more closely she notices the signs of a telltale frown even as he actively avoids her eyes.

Was that guilt?

“Kyle?”

Finally he meets her gaze and his lips tilt into a bitter little smile. “I just...” he draws out the word slowly and runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t get why I even need to go to away to college. Like it’s just all for my parents, right? Maybe it would be better if-“

“Oh no,” Wendy cuts him off quickly, finding it nearly blasphemous to hear the future valedictorian say such things. “You’re going to college. And it’s not just for your parents, it’s for Kenny too.”

Kenny was always Kyle’s weak point, and as expected she earns a sharp look for bringing him up. But this was important. This was a mistake she wouldn’t allow a friend to make.

“He hates the thought of me leaving,” Kyle argues, “even if he doesn’t say it.”

“Well duh.” She rolls her eyes. “Of course he does now, but I’m talking about the future. Like...okay, Kenny’s poor right? So, what does he want to do for a career?”

For a moment Kyle doesn’t say anything, just hesitates while his gaze flickers over to Bebe. To her friend’s credit, the blonde still doesn’t look up from her library manicure. She was listening of course, she had ears like a hawk and never missed gossip, but she always knew when it was best to stay quiet and look uninterested. Lucky for Kyle, Bebe would never betray Wendy or her friends, since he seems to buy her act.

“Don’t tell anyone this,” he begins, voice lowered so only their table could hear, “but Kenny actually really likes to draw. Being an artist is the only thing he’s ever really expressed interest in.”

An artist, huh? Wendy didn’t really understand why that was apparently a big secret, but she supposed some things were just private like that.

“Okay, that’s perfect,” she tells him. “So if you go off to college and get a well paying job, then you can help pay for Kenny to go to art school.”

“He’d kick my ass first, you know he doesn’t accept handouts.”

Bebe suddenly scoffs.

“Well your situation might be a bit different,” Bebe says with a sugary sweet smile when they both look over at her. Straightening her fingers, she wiggles them meaningfully. “A lot can change in five years.”

And of course her friend would give up her act in order to tell Kyle to put a ring on it. Typical Bebe.

Kyle rolls his eyes, but his lips tilt up in obvious amusement. “Okay, okay,” he concedes. “I know I should go to college. And I will.” He lets out a deep sigh. “Doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”

“That’s the spirit,” Wendy quips dryly to which Kyle snickers.

“Hey, Wendy,” he says suddenly, “you haven’t said much about college. Where are you going to go?”

For a moment all the breath escapes from her lungs and she exchanges a quick look with Bebe. However, she’s quickly saved from answering by the bell signaling that lunch was over.

She breathes a sigh of relief.

***

A few weeks later finds Wendy huffing to herself as she plucks the books she’d need for her first group of classes from her locker.

It was senior year, and god only knew why she had decided to take a full academic course schedule. It’s not like it even really mattered at this point what grades she got in them, after all she had all of her credits she needed to graduate anyway. She should have been like the rest of the student body who filled their senior schedule with electives just so they could spend the rest of their high school careers preparing for college and appreciating the time they had left with their friends. Or, she should have been like Cartman and-

No. Shaking her head she places her hand on her locker door in preparation to slam it shut. She was nothing like Cartman. Absolutely nothing like him. She wasn’t running away, wasn’t vanishing into the night like he had. She’d _never_ do that.

Just then, arms suddenly wrap around her waist from behind. She jumps before throwing a glare over her shoulder, even as a smile pulls at her lips. “Stanley Marsh! I told you to quit doing that.”

He laughs and just tightens his hold, leaning in to give her a quick kiss. She returns it, smiling into the familiar warmth and soaking in the comfort of his touch before he releases her and pulls away.

“So...” he begins by drawing out the word and leaning against the locker beside hers. She raises a brow at him and he smiles. “Did you wanna come over my place after school today?”

“Can’t,” she says automatically. With one last look at her and Stan’s immortalized smiling faces posted up on the door of her locker, she softly closes it. “I have prom committee.”

With a frown, Stan pushes up from his slouched position and comes to stand beside her. Once they were side by side, the two of them begin to make their way down the hallway.

“Again?” He asks.

“Well it is less than a month away, Stan.”

“Okay...well how about after?”

Wendy grimaces, mentally going through her busy schedule. “Well I actually have a Bio exam tomorrow and...”

His expression visibly falls and she trails off. She really didn’t make as much time for him as she should have. Did that make her a bad girlfriend? Probably. At least Bebe would say so.

“Okay,” she acquiesces, “I’ll come over after committee.”

In thanks, he wraps an arm around her shoulders and squeezes her into his side.

For a brief moment she wonders how an affectionate gesture could feel so much like a prison as she fights the sudden compulsion to break out of his hold. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy it, because she did. It was comforting. Familiar. And she loved Stan.

She worries at her lip. It was good that he was happy, but now how in the world was she going to find time to study for Bio?

Her thoughts come to a halt as she finds that they’re suddenly stopped in front of Kyle’s locker. Now that they’re not weaving through the crowd anymore, Stan allows his arm to slip from her shoulders and she’s only slightly conflicted on how exactly to feel about that.

“Hey guys,” Stan greets.

Kenny turns away from what seemed to be a quiet conversation with Kyle, to give them a grin. Still, Wendy doesn’t miss the troubled look that Kyle shoots him and she has to wonder what it was that they’d interrupted.

Although before she can think to tug Stan away to allow them to resume their conversation, Kenny’s eyes focus on something behind her shoulder and he instantly perks up. “Here they come,” he singsongs, elbowing Kyle who turns away from his locker at his insistence.

Both Wendy and Stan turn to look at what had garnered their attention. She doesn’t pick it out immediately, not with the constantly moving flow of the hallway, but eventually two out of the throng of people stop. And that’s when she sees it.

In front of the now stopped high schoolers sat a locker fully taped up and decorated in construction paper. A sight she had seen multiple times over the past few weeks as the students attempted finding creative ways to ask their date to the prom. Stan had given her flowers when he’d asked her. Daffodils. Her favorite. Not very creative, but sweet.

Still she wasn’t quite sure what to consider the event that was transpiring before her. It was certainly...something.

Written on top of the construction paper in black marker were the words:

_‘Did you want to stay home during prom with me? - Craig”_

The two boys who had stopped in front of it suddenly turn to each other.

“Oh thank god!” Tweek exclaims as if relieved, before giving his boyfriend a quick and jerky hug.

It was an undoubtedly Craig-ish thing to do to mock trends by doing them himself in his own... _special_ way. Wendy’s a little impressed.

When she turns back to her group, Kenny is giggling with a hand thrown over his mouth, while Kyle is in the middle of saying something about how Craig hadn’t even bothered to write the words evenly across.

“How could you not go to prom?” Stan speaks up, looking properly scandalized. “It’s like the biggest night of our senior year!”

Kyle abruptly shoots him a sharp look, and with a sympathetic wince Wendy suddenly has a pretty good idea what the topic of his and Kenny’s earlier conversation had been.

“It’s not all that great,” Kenny says, giggling coming to a stop. “I mean you have to put out all that money just so you and your date can march around in fancy clothes that you’re just going to tear off of each other at the end of the night anyway.” He shrugs, as if to accentuate his nonchalance, but even Wendy can tell some of his prior cheer is gone.

“Right.” Stan looks appropriately guilty, probably sensing it too. “Well...we better get to class before we’re late.”

Wendy nods, and offers a quick goodbye. But before they walk away, Wendy notices Kyle looking at Kenny with that same troubled expression.

By the time she’s sitting in her first period class, her phone lights up with a text from Kyle.

_‘Hey, can I ask you for a favor?’_

***

“Gee, I didn’t know Kenny liked dresses all this much.”

Wendy nods in silent agreement, watching as Kenny spun in his latest dress outside of the dressing room. It was all she and Butters could do to give him a quick smile and thumbs up before he was practically bouncing back into the dressing room to try on the next dress, Kyle right on his heels.

He’d been trying dresses on for about the past forty minutes. She’d had her fair share of spectating shopping trips from her time with Bebe, but she hadn’t exactly expected Kenny to have the same passion. Not that she was necessarily complaining, it was honestly really sweet to see Kenny so happy over something so simple. Then again, it had been Kyle’s idea, and so it was really no surprise that he’d known all about this little secret side of Kenny McCormick.

Wendy really did have to give Kyle credit, he could come up with a pretty good plan.

The three of them had led Kenny here under the guise of helping find Wendy herself a dress for prom. Of course, what he didn’t know was that she and Bebe had bought both of their dresses months ago. It was then Butters who had asked Kenny to tag along with them, and it was only after Kenny had agreed to go that Kyle had asked Kenny to come over. Which, of course, prompted Kenny to ask him if he too wanted to tag along.

And thus the four of them were suddenly out dress shopping without Kenny suspecting a thing.

In the beginning, Kenny had been content just to look at the racks in a quiet appreciation for a while; however, the moment Kyle asked if he wanted to try on any of them on it was as if a switch had been flipped. ‘Gaze appreciatively’ quickly turning into operation ‘turn Kyle into a living shopping cart’ as Kenny stuffed his boyfriend's arms with likely dozens of dresses before tugging him over to the dressing rooms.

And so, here they were.

“Heya, Wendy?” Butters says suddenly, and when she turns to look at him he offers a slightly shy smile. “Is everything okay?”

She blinks.

“Um yeah,” she answers, not unkindly. “Why do you ask?”

“You’ve just seemed more out of it than usual.”

Her lip quirks up into a small grin. Butters had always had a way of sensing when people were feeling a little under the weather.

“I’ve just had a lot on my mind,” she admits with a small shrug.

“Did ya wanna talk about it?”

“Not really,” she says immediately. But then her gaze finds the dressing room door again, the two of them once again drifting into silence, and she just finds herself talking anyway. “It’s just, sometimes I look at them and wonder how they do it, you know? They’re always so happy and always seem to know exactly where they belong while I...“

She trails off, worrying her lip.

While she what? What even was she trying to say?

“You’re not happy?” Butters asks, once again simplifying things in that special way of his.

“It’s not even that,” she says with a sigh. “I just...feel trapped sometimes. Like there are a million things I should be doing, and instead I’m stuck sitting around and doing nothing.” Releasing a sharp laugh, she turns to him with an apologetic smile. “I’m probably not making sense.”

Still, Butters seems to think over her words. Tilting his head a little in either thought or general confusion.

“You do a lot of stuff for the town. That sure does have to mean something.”

Maybe. But then it wasn’t enough. Wasn’t ever enough.

Just what was wrong with her?

She smiles weakly. “Thanks Butters.”

It’s clear Butters can still tell something is wrong, but before he speaks the dressing room door opens again and outsteps Kenny.

Wendy’s jaw drops, and from beside her she can hear Butters’ sharp inhale of breath.

The dress was the deep seated orange color of sunset. Sleeveless, yet modest. With a top that was lined with small little fake diamonds that were arranged in a pattern that almost mirrored the shapes of dragon scales. The pattern trailed from the neck of the dress that fit snugly along his collarbone, down to his waist where it then flared out into a floor-length and flowy skirt. It was as if it had been made for him, and Kenny simply _glowed_ as if he very well knew it.

It was perfect. Kyle likely agreed if the way he couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from him was any sign.

“Golly...ya sure do look pretty, Kenny.”

Wendy nods in agreement, before finally giving a wide smile and taking a cue from all her shopping sessions with Bebe. “Looking good, Kenny!” She calls, knowing that she should probably say more, yet she was never too well versed in gushing-etiquette.

Still, Kenny’s smile widens at her catcall, and he wriggles his hips, allowing the material to flow around him like liquid sunset.

Kenny looks down at the dress, something bittersweet in his expression, before Kyle leans over and whispers something in his ear that causes his entire face to light up. And Wendy watches with a startled laugh as Kenny winks at them before practically shoving Kyle back into the dressing room.

And here she’d thought that Bebe and Clyde were bad. Then again, she supposed there were worse places to choose for a spontaneous make-out session.

Of course, it’s with that thought that Kyle steps out of the dressing room in order to hang the orange dress on the return hanger. And then everything suddenly clicks as he suddenly meets eyes with Wendy and gives a meaningful gesture towards the now Kenny-less dress. Then, with that, he vanishes back into Kenny’s dressing room.

Well, she had to say, it _was_ one hell of a plan.

“They’re gonna be in there for a while.” Wendy voices to Butters as she thumbs Kyle’s credit card sitting in her coat pocket to double check that it’s still there. Then she stands with a long stretch. “Ready to go, Butters?”

***

If someone were to tell Wendy a year ago that on the night of her senior prom she’d be standing next to Butters Stotch in front of Kenny McCormick’s front door she would have been _highly_ skeptical.

Yet, here she was.

Wendy looks around her a bit nervously when no one immediately answers after Butters gives the rickety front door a few firm knocks. Kenny’s side of the tracks was slightly more than just sketchy, and here she was a young teenage girl who was standing out in the open all dressed up for prom. And having just come from Bebe’s, otherwise known as the fashionista she called her best friend, Wendy knew she looked the best she ever had before.

Even Butters kept sneaking amazed glances at her which was flattering to say the least. And she had to say, Bebe’s fashion sense was not one to be tested.

Her dress was a deep purple, so dark that in certain lighting it almost looked black. It was floor-length and fell like satin around her every curve. Simple, yet elegant. The only spark of color in the deep purple was a cluster of fake diamonds that followed the line of her waist, like stars in the night sky.

She really wished that Kenny would just hurry up and answer. Unless...what if he wasn’t even home? Kyle had planned for this, right?

Her fears are cut short however, when the door is abruptly thrown open to reveal a girl who looks a few years younger than Wendy herself. In a moment of recollection, she remembers that Kenny had a little sister. Karen, she thinks her name was.

Karen stares at her and her state of attire looking dumbfounded for several moments, before her eyes grow impossibly wide. “You’re the girl who used to give out lollipops at the playground,” she breathes, as if an angel had just went and landed on her doorstep.

Wendy blinks. Well, she sure hadn’t been expecting that reaction.

“Oh yeah,” she smiles sweetly, “that’s really cool that you remembered. I’m Wendy.”

“Wendy.” Karen repeats slowly, gaze flickering between her and Butters with something that might be betrayal. Then she just throws her head back and groans before turning on her heel to vanish somewhere in the house.

Well, that was...odd.

From beside her, Butters laughs a bit nervously before giving Wendy an innocent shrug and walking through the still open front door.

Wendy follows.

They make their way to Kenny’s room where the boy in question looks up from where he’d been sketching something in a notebook when they enter.

His eyes grow wide, spotting Wendy, and he whistles lowly. “Damn, Wendy,” he says, eyes lighting up at the sight of the dress, and she can’t help but be flattered all over again. He blinks slowly, confusion finally settling in past the initial shock. “But what did the two of you get lost? This ain’t exactly the prom.”

“We actually gotta surprise for ya,” Butters chirps excitedly.

Kenny’s confusion only deepens as his gaze flicks from Butters to Wendy in question.

Wendy smiles widely. “Consider us something of your…fairy godparents.”

And with that, Wendy removes the dress covering and allows the fabric of the orange dress that she’d been carrying to pour into the room.

For a moment, Kenny just stares at it. Gaze focused on the material as if he’s been caught in some sort of dream and none of this was actually real. As if he can’t quite believe that it ever could be.

Then, slowly, he stands up and walks over to it.

“Did Kyle put you up to this?” He finally chokes out, threading the material through his fingers.

With a confirming nod she says, “We were happy to help.”

“Where is that asshole?” He says, voice full of more unguarded affection then Wendy has ever heard from him. He tears his gaze away from the dress to look between them with glistening blue eyes. “Is he here?”

Wendy shakes her head, and she detects a hint of disappointment at the words. “He and Stan are coming to pick us up later,” she explains. “They had some last minute things to take care of.” She pauses, before straightening up and looking at the two blond boys with her best leaderly gaze. “Well come on, we only have about an hour before they get here.” She jabs a finger towards Kenny, “And I’d put an end to prom itself before I even dare you let you walk out of this house looking any less than a princess.”

She did have strict orders after all.

And so, with that, they get to work.

Kenny gets a quick shower, Wendy giving him exactly eight minutes and instructing him to use some of her conditioner that she’d brought over. Once out, she orders Butters to blow-dry his hair until it’s soft and fluffy while she gets to work on makeup.

She makes sure to keep it light. The goal wasn’t to make him look unrecognizable, only to accent his features. Everyone would know exactly who he was tonight, as Kyle had aptly put it in his instructions. Yeah okay, as if the redhead’s presence at the orange-dress wearer’s arm could have suggested it been anyone else. She rolls her eyes just thinking about it. But she knows what she’s doing as she adds a little foundation, a bit of mascara, and then a sheer pink lip gloss that Kenny attempts to lick off to her immediate disapproval.

“Don’t you even dare, McCormick,” she warns, applying another coat.

Kenny giggles as soon as she pulls back, but to his credit he doesn’t do it again.

“Alright,” she sighs, inspecting both her and Butters work with a critical eye. Then she gives a nod, pleased. “Time for the dress.”

She turns away as Butters helps him slip into it. Letting several seconds pass in relative silence before Kenny makes a slightly pained sound to which Butters frantically apologizes.

“Leo,” she hears Kenny say, “you do realize you don’t have to keep your eyes closed?”

“Well I don’t want Kyle to think you’re cheatin’ on him.”

Wendy practically chokes on her laugh as Kenny erupts into another giggle fit. Oh sweet sweet Butters. And Bebe was worried that this kid might be okay with cheating? As if.

“Alrighty-o we’re all good, Wendy!” Says Butters after another minute.

She turns and is met with the sight of someone who could very well be a princess. Beautiful in a unique way that only someone like Kenny could ever truly pull off. Oozing confidence and poise, with blue eyes that were in stark contrast to the orange thanks to her makeup efforts. She eyes him up and down, before considering something.

Then she plucks out one of her diamond cased bobby-pins holding up her perfectly curled ponytail, and slides it into Kenny’s hair right above his ear.

With that, she once again stands back and admires her work. “Perfect,” she voices this time, satisfied.

Kenny gives her a wide smile and Butters claps and voices his agreement.

The two of them lead him over to the bathroom, after Kenny informs them it houses the only decent sized mirror in the house. Once there, Kenny stands frozen as he looks at his reflection. Blinks, and then wriggles his hips and watches the material flow around him.

“Thank you,” he says quietly.

Before she can respond there’s suddenly a knock on the front door. Kenny stiffens, widened eyes flying in her direction.

“You ready?” She asks him with an encouraging smile.

He takes a deep breath and nods.

And with that they walk out of the bathroom and head towards the front door. Before they get there however, two more doors in the hallway open, likely responding to all the knocking.

Both Karen and his mother freeze at the sight of him.

“I’ll get the door.” Kenny says to them both, looking a bit embarrassed. “It’s for me.”

“Kenny,” Karen breathes after a moment, eyes lighting up the same way they did when she’d seen Wendy. “You look beautiful. Just like a princess.”

“Thanks Karen,” Kenny replies, voice breaking a bit.

“You be careful tonight, baby,” says his mother with a soft smile. “Your boy’s gonna have a hard time keepin’ ya to imself’.”

Kenny just nods, as if he doesn’t quite trust his voice to speak. .

Beside her she can hear Butters’ sniffle, and she admits that her throat is starting to get a little tight. But before she can consider the horror of tears ruining both her and Kenny’s makeup, there’s another series of knocks on the door.

Karen nods to it.

“Go knock em’ dead,” she tells him.

And so, that’s exactly what Kenny does. Flouncing over to the door, and throwing it open to reveal the face of his suddenly completely awestruck boyfriend.

Wendy pats herself on the back as she watches the two of them stare at each other. Sure Kyle saw him in the dress before, but that was before she worked her magic. And Wendy Testaburger never half-assed anything. If he wanted a princess, that’s exactly what he got.

“I heard I have you to blame for this,” Kenny finally says faintly, breaking the silence.

“Well,” says Kyle, seeming to break himself out of the initial trance; although, his eyes still never stray away from Kenny’s face. He gestures vaguely to something outside the still open door, and his lips tilt into a grin. “I know it’s not exactly a horse and carriage and we won’t be technically going to a ball...but this was the best I could do.”

Kenny almost topples him over with the force of his hug, and Kyle laughs as he wraps his arms around him and balances them both.

“You’re such a nerd,” Kenny says affectionately. “I can’t believe you actually remembered.”

“I promised I would, didn’t I?”

Kenny pulls back to look at his face and the moment he does Kyle takes one of the yellow flowers, that he’d plucked from the bouquet he was still holding, and tucks it behind Kenny’s ear. In response, Kenny lifts a hand and softly rests it against his cheek.

Wendy looks away, finding it to suddenly be way too much of an intimate moment for her to be standing there gawking over.

It’s only then that she notices Stan. He’d been standing a little past Kyle’s shoulder, hovering on the front step and waiting for her. Waiting for her to notice him. Upon finally catching his eye, he smiles and mouths ‘You look great’ in that charming way of his that never failed to melt her insides.

Knowing he was keeping quiet in order to ensure they didn’t interrupt Kyle and Kenny’s moment, she mouths back, ‘Thanks, you too’.”

Yet before any other words can be exchanged, without warning Stan’s gaze leaves hers to flick to a spot beside her. To the spot where Butters was still standing. His expression changes to something a bit softer, and yeah, maybe she should be upset. Hell, Bebe would be livid _for_ her. This was supposed to be _her_ night, wasn’t it? But before she can even try to convince herself to feel some sort of jealousy, her eyes catch sight of the world through the still open door beyond Stan’s head.

She catches sight of the stars shining brightly in the late spring night. Of the slight breeze catching in the branches of the distant trees, and the light of the moon illuminating each and every road and sidewalk.

Everything else melts away around her.

She smiles, her heart increasing its tempo in tune with the rush of want and longing she feels just looking at it. The sudden desire to push past Stan and run into the cool night air. To feel the wind in her hair as her dress billows out around her. The deep purple fabric making her into part of the galaxy and transporting her to places she’s only ever seen in her dreams where she would finally discover exactly where she belonged. And where she would finally learn exactly what it meant to be Wendy Testaburger.

It really was a beautiful night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter certainly had a lot of references to past chapters (as most of them tend to as we get closer to the end) and I'm very curious if you guys caught some or even all of them o.o  
> Also, this chapter has fanart! Please go check it out, it's the perfect portrayal of Kenny's dress and I adore it. So many thanks to whookami for drawing it!:  
> https://panacea-for-all-evil.tumblr.com/post/176860327876/whookami-kenny-in-his-prom-dress-from-chapter


	16. The Dreamer

As Stan quickly discovered, as the time for college and graduation grew closer, he found himself getting more and more apprehensive about both events.

They’d seemed exciting once. Hell, even just a few months ago he’d been comparing the football teams of different colleges, and had been essentially buzzing in excitement over the idea of it all. Practically counting down the days until high school finally ended, tired of the same old walls and classrooms.

Yet...that had been when both college and graduation had been something of a far off dream. Something he had to look forward to. And now that it was here, he suddenly wasn’t so sure if he was ready.

He knew Kyle was going away to some fancy college in California; although, he always forgot the name of it, despite the fact he was pretty sure he’d asked about three times already. Then there was Kenny who was staying home and working to save up money. But other than them...Stan honestly didn’t know where everyone was even going. Or if they were leaving at all. And as the days passed by, he found himself only growing more hesitant to ask.

It was just so easy to daydream about college possibilities. Frat houses and the ‘grand new life filled with fun and freedom’ that the movies always painted it with. Yet, finding out where everyone was going made it just a little bit too real, like putting little pins in a world map marking exactly how far apart each and every one of his classmates would soon be. His friends…and every single person he’d grown up with. The people he’d spent more time with over the years than his own family.

They’d all be going their separate ways.

Later, he’d blame the quiet apprehension this all spurred on for the lack of seeing what was right in front of him. For waiting far too long to ask one simple question.

“Hey Wends, what college did you say you were going to again?”

The moment the words leave his mouth, Wendy visibly stiffens. They’d been walking back from the movies, the sky lit up with a thousand stars, and when her steps falter he looks back at her in surprise. She gives him a slightly shaky smile before gesturing to the entrance of the playground they’d been passing.

“Come on, let’s sit,” she says quietly. “There’s something that I need to tell you.”

His stomach drops straight down to his feet at the words, but all he can manage is a slight nod before he follows her into the old playground. He feels like it’s something of a death march, a certain ominousness permeating the air that’s only strengthened by the lifeless playground equipment, devoid of all childish cheer and mirth in the darkness of the night. She leads him over to a bench. The old splintered wood covered with carvings and old faded markers listing off people’s initials in little sloppily drawn hearts. They sit. And Stan waits, knowing deep down exactly what was happening; after all, it might have been a few years but he’d been through this far too frequently before.

Wendy takes a deep breath, and then releases it. She stares out at the playground equipment and a sad little smile plays at the corner of her lips, even as her eyes visibly glisten just a little too brightly.

“I’m not going to college, Stan,” she says finally. Voice thick and tone soft. “At least not yet.”

Stan releases a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. So, she wasn’t breaking up with him? This was seriously just about college? But in that case, why was she acting as if she’d just told him something terrible, as if she was preparing herself to say something that was much worse?

“Wendy, what’s going on?”

A pause. Then finally, “I’m volunteering to join the Peace Corps.”

For a moment Stan can only stare at her blankly, as if she was speaking another language. Her words not quite making sense.

She sighs, and finally meets his eyes with a weak smile. “It’s a government organization where they send you to a country that really needs help. You know, like those places out there that don’t have electricity or running water.” With a pause, she tears her gaze away from his and looks back out at the lifeless playground. “It’s tough,” she finishes in a quiet tone, “but also super rewarding.”

Suddenly feeling oddly numb, Stan calmly asks, “And how long have you been planning to do this?”

“A while.”

“And you didn’t even think to talk to me about it!?” He immediately retorts. Numbness quickly turning to hurt, and shooting her a look filled with raw accusation.

His voice comes out louder than he’d planned, and Wendy flinches. But then she seems to steel herself, shoulders stiffening and rising from the bench as if the added height would give her an advantage. Stan does have to admit, with her pale face illuminated by the moon and dark hair blending into the night, she looks like some sort of fabled goddess.

“So what, you could tell me that I couldn’t go!?” She throws up her arms and gives a harsh disbelieving laugh. “This is _my_ life, Stan! It was _my_ choice! I know that we’ve been together for a long time but…” She trails off, and suddenly seems to shrink in size. Goddess turning back into a high school girl, hands quaking slightly before she shoves them into her coat pockets. “But that doesn’t change anything,” she finally finishes, voice turning impossibly soft. “You will always be you, I will always be me...and maybe we were just never meant to be together.”

And so, she finally said it.

She bites her lip in the way she always did when nervous, and a slight breeze comes by and gently lifts wisps of her hair before the strands fall back down to her shoulders. Stan suddenly has the desire to hold her. To wrap his arms around her and bring her against his chest as he whispered that everything was going to be alright.

Standing from the bench, he pauses and only just barely resists the urge. Wendy was her own pillar, always had been. When she broke, she held herself together, and she’d stiffened in his arms far too many times for him to ever think differently. The gesture would be meant to comfort only himself, as there was no evidence to back up anything on the contrary.

“We can work through this,” he says instead from his own side of the divide. “People do long distance relationships all the time. You’re not going to be there for that long, right?”

For a moment he watches the motion of her two front teeth on her lip, the delicate push and pull as she worries it as if in deep thought. It’s as if Stan has somehow managed to make a difficult situation all the more complicated. “It’s...a two year program,” she slowly answers eventually. Then, releasing a deep sigh, she shakes her head and continues, “But Stan, once I go, I can’t even promise that I’m going to be the same person afterwards. I might have new dreams and new places I’d want to go, and I…” She takes a deep breath and in that moment the world seems to still, holding its breath along with her. Then she releases it. “I can’t promise that I’m going to come back.”

Stan feels tears pricking his eyes and all he can do is stare.

“I mean, I might,” she continues after he doesn’t respond for several moments and deafening silence fills the air. Finding he can no longer look at her, his gaze flickers to inspect the grass beneath his shoes. “Maybe in those two years, or maybe in four. But I can’t be halfway across the world and knowing that you’re still stuck waiting for me. It’s not fair to you...and it’s not fair to me.”

Yeah, well then again, life wasn’t really fair was it? To strive over and over for something to succeed only for it to ultimately fail in the end. All too suddenly, Stan feels sick. He was all too familiar with breakups, they were almost seasonal in nature, at least in his experience with Wendy. Still, this time felt different.

This time it truly felt like the end.

“So,” he says still gazing down at his feet, “this is it then?”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

He finally looks up at the equally broken hitch to her voice. Then he offers her a small bitter little smile. “Doomed from the start?”

“I didn’t want it to be,” she admits in a whisper.

“But you knew, didn’t you? That’s why you kept pushing me towards Butters.”

“I was never pushing you to do anything, Stan. I _loved_ you.” The raw conviction in her words makes him shudder, and when she next speaks her voice is softer, more resigned. “And I think a part of me always will. But I think that we both knew that we were going nowhere, and I wanted you to know that there was always a choice. That I wasn’t…”

She trails off, but the meaning of what she says is suddenly strikingly clear. Maybe it took this one final heartbreak to cause things to finally click into place. Or maybe Stan had just grown up without really realizing it. He briefly recalls conversations with Kenny and Kyle about love, the look in Butters’ eyes as he gazed at him from across the room, and the fluttery feeling in his chest that erupted every time Butters would smile up at him. And _of course_ he knows exactly what she’s saying. That she wasn’t the only one he could ever love. That the world of romance didn’t start and end at Wendy Testaburger.

It’s the very thing she was trying to get him to realize all along.

When was it that she’d gotten so wise?

Apparently he’d been lost in thought for several moments, because when he next takes in her expression he realizes that it’s turned slightly uncomfortable. She gazes down at her hands, fidgets a bit, and looks uncharacteristically like a lost little girl who’s not really sure where to go from here. And despite everything, the desire to hold her is as strong as ever.

“I should probably get going…”

“Wait,” Stan says quickly, before she can leave. A sudden fear swirling around in the pit of his gut that the moment she walks away everything will change indefinitely. Their relationship part of the past to never be spoken of between them again. He swallows down his nerves and asks, “Can’t we just spend one more night together?”

She looks at him with surprise, but to his relief doesn’t seem offended or appalled at the idea. “And what, play pretend?”

“Maybe.” He shrugs. “We can even pretend we hate each other in the morning if you want. But what’s a few more hours?”

“You’re ridiculous,” she says with a disbelieving laugh, but she takes the hand he had outstretched to her anyway. He tightens his fingers around hers, and then together they sit back down on the bench, hands connected, and looking out at the night sky stretching out beyond the desolate playground.

They’re silent for a while, the atmosphere slightly uncomfortable in light of all that had happened. But then, Stan laughs.

“Do you remember that time in the seventh grade when I asked you to go stargazing?”

Her laugh mirrors his own and she smiles. “How could I forget? You were on your phone half the time trying to figure out constellations.”

“I’d tried to memorize them before we went too. But the actual sky isn’t anything like they make it look on the internet.” He shakes his head, remembering being that young and innocent. His entire world based around Wendy, something that had never really changed as much as it should have. “I was trying so hard to impress you.”

“You did. Especially when you started making them up.” He gives her a look and Wendy giggles. “Don’t look at me like that,” she smirks, “I believe the one that tipped me off was ‘quarterback for the Broncos’.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t call me out on it,” he says with a grimace, suddenly embarrassed for his middle school self.

“I thought it was sweet.” The smile she gives him, although somber, is filled with true fondness. “And I’d had a good time.”

After that story they soon launch into another one. And then another one. They laugh over memories, ones from when they were kids, then from when they were teenagers. Somewhere down the line, Stan’s struck by just how easy it is to be with her. How well they could have worked as friends if they hadn’t been constantly fighting the world itself trying to snuff out all romanticism.

“You know,” Wendy says after a while, “if I was anyone but me, and you were anyone but you, then maybe we could have made it.”

Stan thinks about this for a moment then nods. “Then it wouldn’t have been us.”

“Maybe not,” she admits without looking at him, eyes still tilted towards the sky. “But it’s nice to think that somewhere out there, in another world, things could have worked between us.”

“It’s a nice thought,” he agrees and she finally looks at him with a sad little smile.

“The best.”

***

On the day of graduation, it rains.

Not a storm or anything heavy that would force them to move the ceremony indoors, but instead a gray-tinted cloud covers the sky even as little rays of sunlight attempt to peek through it. Little mists of rain occasionally drift downwards, as if the sky itself can’t seem to hold back tears even though the weather report that morning had read _sunny_.

Stan supposes it’s fitting for a day where all his life he’d been expecting enthusiasm and euphoria, yet instead he finds himself in a perpetual state of trying not to cry.

Graduation was the end of everything that they once knew, and served as the beginning for something else. Something greater. Everyone moving off in different directions to forge their own paths in life. An entrance into the real world that isn’t marked by a conscious decision, but instead a single date on a calendar. A little like the seasons, or the end of summer being marked by the start of the school year; it was always there waiting, whether ready for it or not.

And as he sits there in those stupidly uncomfortable folding chairs with the rest of his graduating class, his mind wanders away from it all. Wanders away from the faculty and school board representatives that each take their turn reading off some platitude ridden speech at the podium, and instead travels elsewhere.

He finds himself thinking about earlier that day. His mom smiling through her tears, and his dad draping an arm over her as he looked at Stan with something that might have actually been pride. He hadn’t been drunk, not like he had been the day that Shelly graduated. And he can see them both now, sitting in the bleachers from where he sits. His dad has one of those obsessively big video cameras in his hands that he’s pretty sure he was scammed into buying from some guy on ebay, but it’s not alcohol and he doesn’t seem to be starting any fights, so he can’t complain. Maybe his dad will never be the perfect father figure, but over the years it had been clear that he started trying to be a bit more of one. And Stan could appreciate that, even if he didn’t quite forgive him.

Butters had been the one to convince him to finally give up on some of the resentment he’d been harboring for his father for years.

 _“Nobody’s perfect Stan,”_ he’d told him. _“But your dad loves ya, and I think that everyone sure does deserve a second chance.”_

Stan’s pretty sure he’d given his dad multiple chances over the years, but he did get that maybe a fresh start was what they both needed.

Hell, maybe a fresh start was what he needed on a lot of things.

Like with Wendy, for one. He still saw her sometimes, still spent some time with her among mutual friends, yet he still missed her. Her strength. Her purpose. Her drive that always made him believe that she’d find the right path and then take him along with her. It was hard to look at her when all he could think of was everything they once were, yet could never be again.

Much in the same way it was hard to look at Butters sometimes.

It was hard not to look at him and see everything that they could have been. Had they had a little more time, Stan maybe would have started something. But with Wendy’s breakup being so quickly followed by graduation and everything suddenly rushing by in front of him....it was just a little too late to be starting something now. He had asked Kenny, in fear of actually having to breach the subject of college with Butters after what happened after he’d asked Wendy, and Kenny had told him that the blond was going away to school. Said he couldn’t remember where, but not like that really mattered anyway. The point of it was simple: in a few months they’d both be going off in different directions. And then who knows where’d they’d end up.

It was the time of their lives where they were supposed to be wrapping things up and saying their goodbyes, not to be starting things that he’d been dancing around for years. Summer romances never usually ended well, the movies had taught him that much.

Before he knows it, Kyle is walking up to the podium for his valedictorian speech and Stan’s thoughts come to an end as he pays attention to his best friend.

Kyle, of course, starts the whole thing off with, “So, I learned something today...” and Stan can’t help but roll his eyes even through the ball of nostalgia that lodges in his throat.

He talks about their childhood and growing up. About how had he grown up in any other town, or ended up going to any other school, he wouldn’t be the same person he was today.

He thanks his family for supporting him, and mentions a few teachers that had helped him. And in a surprising moment thanks Eric Cartman, despite his absence, for making him a tougher person.

Next, he thanks Stan for being his best friend and sticking by him all these years. And after that, when he finally gets to Kenny, his tone changes as he very clearly seeks out his eyes in the audience and then never once looks away when he says, “And I’d like to thank my boyfriend, Kenny McCormick, for being my compass. For giving my life direction and never once leaving me behind.”

And although Stan can’t see Kenny’s face, he figures the adoring expression on Kyle’s is a pretty good indicator of what could be found reflected there.

“We lived part of our lives within these walls,” Kyle says, coming to his conclusion. “No matter where we go, whether to another state or country, I know for a fact that a part of us will live on here. If not ourselves, then the memories we’ve created together. Forming friendships, falling in love, and seeing each other every day as we grew up and experienced both the best and worst moments of our lives. Those memories won’t go away just because we’re not here anymore, and instead we’ll keep them with us, no matter where we may go.”

And at the end, when he thanks them and turns to head back to his seat, Stan’s pretty sure there isn’t a dry eye in the place.

Kyle’s speech unsurprisingly ends up stealing the spotlight, as the remaining speakers mainly focus on the same old platitudes about being proud and looking towards the future with enthusiasm.

Then before Stan knows it, it’s over.

Line by line they rise, before forming one large circle in the center field in preparation of their last act together as a single graduating class. And as they all stand as a group, Stan’s eyes glaze over the sea of faces he’s come to know. That was the thing about growing up in a small town, after all, they were all kind of connected to each other. Kyle was right about that.

He spots Kyle from across the field, but the redhead doesn’t meet his gaze. Instead his eyes are focused on some other part of the circle and Stan knows that Kenny and Kyle will likely run off somewhere after this. And not for the first time, he can’t help but wonder just how they’re going to learn to live without each other. Wendy also seems to have her attention diverted elsewhere when he looks at her, but Butters catches his eye. The blond gives him a smile from across the field and Stan tries to give one back; although, even he knows it falls short.

Then, with the signal, they finally throw their caps up in the air and he can’t help but picture them as autumn leaves as they simultaneously fall back to the ground.

It’d been a good ride.

***

Stan says goodbye to Wendy on a bright and sunny morning in the midst of summer.

A few weeks earlier she had told him she’d be going to the Philippines to complete four months of training before she was even to be told where she was going. Still, although there was something somber in her expression as she said it, her eyes had sparkled with undisputable excitement.

And he was happy for her. Even though his heart clenches painfully in his chest as he walks up to her house where she stood with a group of her closest friends in front of her fully packed car. It’d taken himself a lot of convincing to finally summon the energy to leave his house to say goodbye. A part of him maybe hoping that if he didn’t say it, then it wouldn’t be real.

As he walks up the sidewalk he notices that Bebe is leaning against Kyle’s shoulder as if for support as she sniffles. And although Kenny’s trying pretty hard to look like he doesn’t care, Stan doesn’t miss the side-eye he gives her. Kenny was a pretty easygoing person, but Stan knew he suspected that Bebe’s crush on his boyfriend had never really went away. Pair that with the fact he wasn't’ too fond of anyone getting handsy with Kyle, and had it been under any other circumstances he probably would have found a perfectly reasonable way to shove himself between them.

But these weren’t your everyday circumstances.

The three don’t pay Stan any mind as he approaches; however, Butters, who had been standing a little off to the side, gives him a small smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He’d been getting that smile a lot these past few weeks, and so he just returns it with one of his own before switching his attention to Wendy who hasn’t yet noticed him. She’s leaning down and saying something to Karen, dark hair swept over her shoulder and hiding her face but with a hand gently resting on the younger girl’s shoulder as Karen nods through the tears in her eyes. 

In the past few weeks, Wendy had gotten surprisingly close with Kenny’s little sister. Since school was over and Wendy no longer had her and Stan’s relationship to occupy her, she’d been spending a lot of her time elsewhere. With her parents, with Bebe, and then apparently with Butters, Kenny, and Karen. Stan of course still saw her sometimes, they’d meet up for coffee or spend time with Kenny and Kyle who had nearly become as much of her friends as they were Stan’s. But after everything, it was hard to spend time together and ignore all the history they had. Maybe that had always been their problem, whereas any other couple would have settled as friends, with them there was always too much damn history.

Giving the girl one final firm hug, Wendy finally turns away from her and spots him. Pinning him with her slightly surprised gaze and narrowing down the world to just the two of them. And suddenly it’s as if he’s seven years old again, seeing her for the first time. His stomach spins with a certain nausea that he hasn’t felt in years, and for a horrifying moment he’s afraid he’s going to be sick.

But then it passes.

Shock dissipating, she gives him that slow and perfect smile that always made his heartbeat quicken and walks up to him.

“I’m glad you came by,” she tells him, stopping just out of arm's reach.

He nods, throat tight and unsure of what to possibly say. When he’d left his house he’d been hoping that the perfect words would just come to him, but now it was very clear that it wasn’t going to be the case.

Finally, he settles on a slightly choked, “Be careful out there.”

The moment he says the words, tears well up in her eyes and she abruptly steps forward and throws her arms around him. He clutches her tightly to his chest, closing his eyes and breathing her in for what might be the last time.

Then, far too soon, she steps back.

For a moment, as she stands there wiping a stray tear from her cheek, he wonders if maybe she’s going to say some sort of last minute confession. Like in the movies. Telling him how she’d always loved him, and that she’d miss him. Would maybe suggest writing letters to each other, where they’d keep in touch even when she didn’t have the phone service to do so. Something that would suggest, would give hope, that this wasn’t really the end.

Instead, she weakly smiles and tells him, “Bye, Stan.”

Then with one final wave to the rest, she turns and enters her car.

And Stan watches as she drives away. Looks on until that car vanishes into the horizon, until he’s left with nothing but empty air, as if she’d only been a dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, high school is over and with that, we finally enter the last arc of this little story. ;;w;;  
> 


	17. College

College is a lot like a new beginning.

Kyle wakes up in a new bed, surrounded by new things in a new house. He’d brought things from home, sure. But most were things that he’d bought specifically for his new shared apartment here, choosing to leave most of his stuff in his room back home.

Or well...he supposes _this_ was home now. At least for the next two semesters, maybe longer if he chose to rent it out again next year.

Kyle walks into the kitchen of the apartment only to see his roommate is already sitting at the table. He’d spoken to him a bit yesterday when they both moved in, as people who would be sharing the same house for the next year or so would tend to do. And he’d talked to him a bit through email before now, discussing things such as who’d be bringing the coffee maker and such. Overall he seemed friendly enough, if only a bit on the boring side.

His name was Michael, Mike for short, which immediately made Kyle think of that one goth kid who used to be his nonconforming self in the halls of South Park High until the day that he graduated. Kyle can’t help but wonder what ever came of him. And, of course, Kyle is well aware that the fact that in all of his years he’d only ever actually known one Michael is strange considering the commonality of the name. It just served to show how much of a small town he’d grown up in. Proved how out of his element he was out here. The air much drier than he was used to, always permeated with a certain burning heat that had been rare in the cold Colorado skies. The people more abundant, and the buildings much larger than those in South Park.

It’d all take some getting used to.

It’s mid-morning by the time Kyle makes his way to the kitchen. He’s freshly showered and ready for the day at large, at least in a physical sense. His books are shoved into the bag on his shoulder which he deposits with a heavy thump onto the kitchen table, before he looks up to meet the eyes of his roommate who, in turn, gives him a pleasant smile from over his mug of what looks like tea.

“First day of class?” He asks Kyle who after offering him a polite smile of his own had turned to grab a glass from the cabinet. “None of my classes start until tomorrow.”

At his words, the reality of his situation sinks in and Kyle automatically releases a sardonic laugh. “I’m considering burning down the school so I won’t have to go,” he bites out as he watches his glass fill with water. It’s only when the next few moments pass in an awkward silence that Kyle finally allows himself a glance over his shoulder to Mike, his roommate plastering on a tight-lipped smile.

Kyle immediately cringes. “That was...a joke.”

“Oh yeah, I know,” he says not unkindly. But when Kyle fully turns to look at him, water held firmly in both hands, and the guy still says nothing more, Kyle can’t help but wonder if he was actually rooming with a robot. He knew people could be pretty socially awkward, and not everyone shared his brand of humor, but this was just ridiculous.

Leaning against the counter, Kyle frowns down at his glass.

Although it’s then that Mike finally seems to pick up on the sudden awkwardness and makes another attempt at conversation. “So, hey you said you’re from a small town in Colorado, right?” He asks, and when Kyle gives a confirmative nod he continues with, “Well, what’s it like moving to a big city?”

 _Weird_ , his mind immediately supplies.

 _Different_.

... _Lonely_.

“It’s fine,” he finds himself saying instead, in no mood to open up to a stranger.

“I mean, is it weird being around so many people and stuff?” Mike continues oblivious to Kyle’s reluctance to breach the subject. But of course, this guy knew nothing about him, knew nothing about his tells or the anger and frustration that was lying dormant but could ever so easily tip over and boil to the surface.

Just what was he even trying to get at anyway?

“I moved from a town,” Kyle grits out. “Not the middle of the woods.”

“That’s not what I-“

“Yeah, I know,” Kyle cuts him off, deflating and running a hand through his hair with a tired sigh. It wasn’t Mike’s fault, and he shouldn’t be taking out his frustration on him. “Sorry. I didn’t really sleep well last night.”

In response, Mike just gives him a polite smile before excusing himself and moving to his room.

Feeling a sudden headache coming on, Kyle takes a moment to rub at his temple. Then with a deep breath, he places the half-full glass a little too roughly into the sink, water splashing up over the sides with the action, and then grabs his bag and leaves for class.

Outside the air is layered with the same dry heat that he’d come to expect from California. He’d chosen an apartment that was within walking distance of his school, but at the time he hadn’t really considered the desert-like conditions that he’d need to trudge to class through. It certainly didn’t help that his textbooks made his bag feel as if it weighed half a ton, his shoulder blades already beginning to ache under its weight.

He needed a damn coffee.

And so he veers off his path and heads to the closest coffee shop that he knew about, one that he’d noticed when he’d first drove here. It’s a Harbucks, which in itself is familiar and therefore a bit of a comfort. Walking in he notices the familiar atmosphere, the smell of brewing coffee and the interior design that was reminiscent of the one back home. He steps into line and almost expects to see familiar faces waiting for their order, and greeting people behind the counter.

But of course, they’re all strangers.

He orders his usual and then waits at the pick up line for his drink to be finished. When it is, he grabs it and then stares at the size of the cup in surprise.

He...hadn’t meant to order the largest size. It’d just been a habit.

Frowning down at his much too large drink, Kyle lets out a soft sigh and then turns and exits the coffee shop to continue his walk to the college. Although this time, with the coffee his unconscious mind had intended for two resting in his hands, Kyle can’t stop his thoughts from wandering to a certain blond. It’d been pretty much a losing battle anyway, but Kyle had at least been trying not to dwell on what he’d left behind half a country away.

He thinks of Kenny’s stupidly attractive lopsided smile, and the consistent faint brush of his shoulder against his as they’d walk together. He thinks of the way that very smile had been forced on the day he had left for California. Kenny trying his best to deflect his obvious pain with cheeky humor, and the way he had finally crumpled in his arms when Kyle had hugged him goodbye. They’d been apart several days now, but if Kyle closed his eyes he swore he could still feel the way his hands had gripped at his clothes before he finally let him go.

They’d talked since then of course. On the phone and through texts back and forth, but it wasn’t quite the same. He’d known this would happen, and he’d confessed his fears to his mom a few days before he left when the doubts of his decision began to become overwhelming as the last of his summer ticked down.

 _“Well, of course it’s going to be hard, Bubbe,”_ she’d told him. _“When you spend almost every significant moment of your life with someone it’s only natural to want to spend the rest of them with them too. But I know you’re going to do great at school, and Kenny will still be here when you get back.”_

She was right, of course. But facts and logic didn’t make it any easier.

The stretch of the college campus is suddenly in view, and Kyle watches as students mill about. Some of talking in groups, and others hurrying across campus presumably towards their next class. And for a moment, Kyle finds it to be entirely reminiscent of the first day of high school, a whole new adventure standing before him. The memory rushes to the front of his mind and he can’t help his lips from tilting into a small smile.

He remembers sitting in the grass and waiting for Kenny as the blond ran late again. The worry in his gut that something might have happened. Then the relief at seeing Kenny rushing towards him, giving him that lopsided grin that told him everything was going to be okay.

For a faint moment, he half expects a bout of orange to come hurrying around the corner to meet him, just like before. But it’s stupid, of course it’s stupid. Kenny was still back home, half a country away.

He sighs and walks the final small bit of distance to the correct building listed on his schedule, and then enters his classroom.

Taking a seat in the back, he ignores a few of the earlier students who had already begun striking up conversations with each other and pulls out his phone. He types three words into a message and then hits send.

***

_‘I miss you.’_

Kenny looks down at the words staring back at him on the screen and gives a sad little smile.

At his side are the train tracks that seem to go on for miles and miles, and in front of him is Kyle’s house standing before him right where it’s always been. A beacon of light and safety, a promise of a safe place on the other side of the tracks that divided their two vastly different worlds.

Of course, the only difference was Kyle himself wasn’t around anymore. Wasn’t around to leave his window open for Kenny at night. Wasn’t there to greet him with a smile that never hid his fondness, and an invitation into the warmth of his arms.

And he wasn’t going to be coming back for a while.

 _‘its only been like 2 days,'_ Kenny texts back anyway, not wanting to concern Kyle with the truth. The truth being that he knew that he’d actually been gone exactly sixty-four hours. That those sixty-four hours could also be known as a small eternity, or at least that’s what it felt like.

But really, who was counting?

 _‘Feels like longer.’_ Comes Kyle’s response, and Kenny can’t help the spark of relief over the knowledge that the feeling is mutual.

Yet guilt quickly follows the relief, one emotion being replaced by the other in a span of a moment.

Kyle didn’t deserve to be upset. He was going to do great things and he shouldn’t be hung up over some poor kid all the way back in his small town. Kyle needed to live a little, Kenny had always tried his best to show him that.

It was the least he could do.

_‘know what else feels longer ;)’_

_‘I think you might have just called your dick short.’_

Kenny can’t help but laugh, lips quirking into their first real smile since his redheaded lifeline had left. They then tilt into more of a smirk as he types out his next response.

_‘tooshay’_

_‘Lmao it’s touché.’_

Reading Kyle’s words, Kenny’s smile widens. He’d expected that reaction and had planned appropriately.

_‘I know youre touchy’_

_‘You just made me snort in the middle of my new classroom.’_

_‘shit’_

_‘What’s wrong?’_

He can practically hear Kyle’s concern. That moment where his amusement falters and his brow crinkles in concern, that little crease forming across his forehead that Kenny always liked to smooth out with his thumb. The action not banishing the worry, but making Kyle’s expression turn just a bit softer.

_‘your snorts are hot af and now i’m gonna have to fight everyone for your hand’_

_‘My hand? What is this, the eighteenth century?’_

A laugh and a shake of his head.

_‘I will wage wars for you.’_

_‘You're such a fucking dork.'_

His lips would quirk upwards into an even larger grin despite his words. Body shaking in silent laughter that he was too proud to submit to, even as Kenny himself muffled his giggles just as he was doing now.

Kenny would peak up at him and would be met with a look of bright amusement.

Of adoration.

And of something much stronger, an emotion that never failed to give him butterflies

_‘Omg dude, some guy just walked in with like ten cups of coffee.’_

Kenny finds himself laughing again, and quickly types out his next response.

_‘maybe he was thirsty’_

_‘Caffeine dehydrates you.’_

_‘alright nerd maybe hes tired dont judge’_

_‘It’s only a fifty minute class.’_

Kenny imagines Kyle giving strange looks to this strange coffee dude. Gaze filled with bafflement along with a slight suspicion. Kyle always wanted to understand the world and everyone in it, and when something odd happened he couldn’t help but think there had to be some logical reason behind it. Kenny, of course, was thankful for that particular trait of character for many reasons, but usually only when it was directed at him. After all, not everyone liked to be looked at as if they were some sort of complicated math equation.

Still, despite all of that, Kenny can’t help the old familiar ache from clutching at his heart. If mystery was what drew Kyle to him in the first place, wouldn’t it only be a matter of time before he realized that there was nothing more to learn? That he would someday come to the conclusion that he already knew every part of Kenny McCormick. Heart, mind, and soul. And would find someone out there who was much more interesting then some poor kid from a hick town.

Hell, maybe coffee dude had some weird backstory and powers. A makeup of character that was vastly more appealing. Or maybe it was someone he already knew, after all, the world worked in weird ways sometimes.

_‘is it Tweek???’_

_‘No, but maybe like a long lost cousin.’_

_‘you should go ask him’_

_‘No.’_

Before Kenny can send anything else, another message pops up, Kyle’s next words causing a sudden wave of melancholy to wash over him.

_‘Shit I have to go, class is about to start. Talk to you later.’_

He looks down at the message he had been in the middle of typing and promptly deletes it, replacing it with a simple, _‘ok’_.

Kyle doesn’t respond and Kenny sighs, looking back up at Kyle’s house. Sometimes it was so easy to pretend that he was still there, that all he would have to do is cross the tracks and come home.

But of course, that was stupid.

Suddenly feeling bored and lonely, Kenny types a quick message to Stan. He hits send, and then while he waits for his response his gaze settles on a little familiar spark of color sticking out of the grass a little ways down the tracks. Smiling to himself, Kenny stands and goes to walk over to it; however, the moment he steps onto the tracks is punctuated by the sound of a train whistle and he squinches his eyes shut to brace himself.

***

_‘hows college?’_

Stan looks down at the message causing the screen of his phone to light up, and then back up at his still talking professor, Positioning his books to hide his phone from the man’s line of sight, he types out his response.

_‘Fine I guess.’_

When the minutes tick by and Kenny doesn’t respond, Stan sighs. That single text message had been the most exciting thing to happen to him all class, the professor continuing to read over the syllabus, droning on about class attendance and the grading system.

Promptly giving up on even trying to listen, Stan checks his message chain with Wendy almost automatically, a routine he’d gotten into a habit of, only to slump further in his seat as ‘message not delivered’ looks back at him from under the last text he had sent almost two weeks ago. He thought about resending it, he _always_ thought about resending it.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, he scrolls down to a new name. One he hadn’t texted in a while, despite having seen him only a few days ago before he left.

Butters.

His hand hovers over the keyboard, thinking of about a million things he could possibly text him. Apologies for avoiding him and being an awful friend. Questions about where he was and what he was doing. That deep nagging part of him wondering just what his reaction would be if he suddenly sent the words ‘I think maybe in love with you,’ over text like a coward.

Ultimately, he settles on a simple, _‘Hey’_.

Although, the moment he hits send a few things happen in rapid succession. A chain of events that occur, all seeming impossible, yet add up to one undeniable truth.

There is the sound of a phone going off, the ringtone cutting through the quiet classroom but catching Stan’s attention mainly due to its familiarity.

And then there’s movement. The sight of a boy frantically digging through his bag that causes Stan’s eyes to widen in disbelief.

But it couldn’t be…

But then a faint mutter of, “Oh hamburgers,” completely seals the deal.

Stan drops his phone, the device clattering loudly onto his desk and suddenly he’s looking across the room straight into the eyes of Butters Stotch.

The old queasiness hits him full force and Stan abruptly stands from his seat, ignoring the few odd looks he receives, and hurries out into the hallway and to the nearest bathroom where he promptly throws up his breakfast. Luckily no one else is in the bathroom to witness his small breakdown, his heaving breaths over the toilet and hands that brace shakily against the wall to assist his trembling legs. It’s a lot to deal with all at once. His stomach twists around with butterflies at the sudden possibilities, the very thing that caused his rush to the bathroom in the first place. But there’s another part of him that doesn’t dare to hope, that says he’d made far to many mistakes for things to end up this good. That this was far too much like a movie scene, and he’d only recently realized that life was far different.

When he finally steadies himself and walks out of the bathroom, Butters is already there waiting for him.

How he’d known exactly where he rushed off to doesn’t really surprise him. Maybe it should, but Butters had always had an act for knowing where to find him.

“Heya Stan,” Butters says, being the braver of the two and breaking the silence. Hands fiddling only slightly, and smile a bit nervous but not any more then it had been in the weeks following Stan’s breakup with Wendy. In the weeks where Stan had done his best to avoid him in favor of retreating into his own self-pity.

He just hadn’t known what to say.

“Hey Butters.”

And he still didn’t know. There was just so much unspoken history between them, and now _this_. Where was he even supposed to start?

Rather unsurprisingly, Butters once again takes the initiative and is the first to breach the silence before it turns uncomfortable between them.

“Well uh gee, I didn’t know you were going to this school too.”

“Yeah, I had no idea.” _Fucking say something_ , he tells himself. _Stop staring at him and use your words, you dumbass._ “And uh, it looks like we both took the same class.”

Butters nods faintly.

“They told me I had to for my nursing degree.”

Huh, nursing. Stan hadn’t even known that Butters wanted to be a nurse. The thought is...well, pretty damn attractive when he visualizes it, as well as completely fitting considering how much Butters cared about other people. It also made sense that a nurse would also need to take a First Aid and Safety course.

Funny how things worked out.

“Same. But for criminal justice.”

“Sure is an awful big coincidence.”

“Yeah...or maybe it’s not?” Suddenly the words come out without thinking, mind too distracted with the barrage of past memories rushing to the surface, brought on by the realization of just how much of an odd circumstance they had found themselves in. He remembers everything that Kenny and Kyle had been telling him from the start, recalls all his failings with Wendy, and about how he had learned that sometimes things really were just left to fate. And if this wasn’t fate, if this wasn’t a sign that they were meant to be, then he didn’t know what was. “Maybe it’s fate,” he finally voices, knowing his smile is undeniably hopeful.

Stan then takes a single step forward, hand outstretched in an invitation for Butters to take.

Butters takes one look at it, and steps back.

Blinking in confusion, Stan eyes the boy in front of him only to see his gaze has turned into something almost apologetic. Fiddling with his hands with increased vigor, until he seems to realize what he’s doing and pushes them behind his back.

“Well gee Stan,” he begins his explanation, tone a bit softer than usual. “I’ve been waitin’ an awful long time for you to say that, but I can’t let myself go and be your second choice, not after you went and chose Wendy over me.” Lifting his gaze from the ground, Butters fixes him with a stern look. “And you sure do know that’s true.”

Stan swallows a lump in his throat, knowing that Butters was right, even with as much as he told himself otherwise. He had chosen Wendy over him, time and time again. Because it had been easier. Because Wendy Testaburger had been someone he was terrified to let go of, even when he knew it would have been better for them both.

But things were different now.

“It wouldn’t be like that. Butters, dude, you’re...pretty damn important to me, okay?” He finally admits, watching as Butters’ eyes widen in surprise, and refusing to look away from his bright blue gaze. He needed him to understand. “You’ve always been there to help me and pick me up when the world looked like complete shit, and sometimes I really don’t know what I would have done without you. And I know I’ve been a dumbass, and I know it took me way too long to realize what was staring me straight in the face, but now we really do have a chance to be something and…”

He trails off, lips stalling on the words that were just a bit too real to say.

“...And what, Stan?” Butters pipes up, voice almost inaudibly soft.

_I can’t let this slip away from me._

But Stan just shakes his head, even now unable to say what he knows he should. “Look, I’m sorry Butters...for everything,” he concludes instead. “I didn’t know what to do, and I ended up getting you caught in the middle of everything. I should have just been honest with you from the start.”

“Yeah, you should of,” Butters says not unkindly. Stating a fact, but with a small smile still tugging at his lips. “But if we’re over here talkin’ bout’ honesty, then what would ya do if Wendy suddenly came on back here again?”

The question catches him a bit off guard, but Stan seriously considers it. Allows himself to really imagine what he would do if Wendy suddenly came waltzing back into his life. The answer should be obvious, but Butters deserved complete honesty. And as he thinks of it, thinks of _her_ , he finds his honest answer.

“...It wouldn’t change anything,” he tells him. “We’re done, Butters. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since she left and I realized that even though a part of me may always love her, I couldn’t ever take her back after realizing what I did.”

“And what’s that, Stan?”

He takes a deep breath and allows himself to once again fully meet Butters’ eyes. To let him feel his conviction, to let him see everything that he’d been hiding behind a wall for far too long.

“That she was my first love and I guess I wanted her to be my only...but she wasn’t. And maybe, a lot of the time I spent with her I should have been spending with you.”

The moment the last of his words leave his lips he hears Butters’ steep inhale of breath, and although it suddenly feels as if a weight had been lifted from his chest, Stan can’t help but be terrified of his reaction. Finding himself no longer able to meet his eyes he looks away, staring down at the floor and preparing for the worst.

A hand grasps his own.

Eyes darting up from the floor, he’s suddenly looking into Butters’ soft blue ones, a faint glimmer present that makes them even more vivid. More beautiful.

“...How about we don’t rush into anything?” Butters says gently after a small pause, lips tilting into a small yet hopeful smile. “We’ve got time, so we can kinda just stay friends and see where things go?”

And that’s when it hits him.

That’s when he fully, truly, understands exactly what everyone had been telling him all along.

Understands that friendship really was the foundation of every relationship, and was the best place for one to start. And that labels were never the most important thing.

He understands that this was just the way life went. People finding each other through strange circumstances, and moments of the highest unpredictability. Relationships that start out slow, not with dreams of marriage in an endless march forward to a distant dream, but with two people coming together to live in the moment just to see where it takes them.

After all, who was to say who’d he be in a week from now? In a month? It was a new beginning, a new start, and Stan had all the time in the world to fully figure out who he was without Wendy Testaburger. Who he was without the unreachable fantasies, and that dumb list that he’d for some reason refused to throw out even when he’d left. He kind of wished he’d actually brought it with him so that he could tear it into small little pieces. So he could then lift his hand holding those pieces into the air and let the wind carry them away, off to far off places that he might not ever see.

But there was always time for that later.

For now, he just gives Butters’ hand a squeeze.

“I think I’d like that.”


	18. The Unsaid (Part 2)

When it rains, it pours.

Kenny knew a lot about death. He knew that it happened with little warning. A gunshot from out of nowhere or a car speeding down the road. He knew from personal experience how it felt in the moments right before it happened. Heartbeat slowing and breathing growing quiet as the world faded into darkness. He knew, with absolute certainty, exactly what it felt like to die.

What he didn’t know, was what it felt like to watch someone else die.

Someone close to him. No warning. Helpless as he recognized the signs but couldn’t change the outcome. Knowing the moment that life left the eyes and what had once been a person was only a body.

The body of...his mom.

The person who had raised him. Who had told him fairytale stories when he was a kid and who had told him:  _“Baby, I know you is gonna do great things. It’s gonna be okay._ ” on her own death bed. Who might not have been the model parent, but had tried her best with the hand she’d been given.

Kenny knew a lot about death, and all things considered she’d had a good one. Surrounded by her husband and all three of her children, in a hospital that had at the very least given her medication to quell some of the pain in her chest. But that was all that they could do. At the end, her diagnosis was one thing: uncertain. The term postpartum preeclampsia was thrown around at one point, until it was made clear that her youngest child was a high schooler.

Kevin later tells them that he’d known she was sick for a while, but she’d just kept telling him not to worry.

Karen had suspected something wasn’t right, but she’d thought it’d been the alcohol and cigarettes to blame.

Kenny doesn’t know what to think.

All he knows is that there’s a part of him that keeps expecting her to come back. For him to turn the corner and she’d be sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of watered down coffee as always.

But she never does.

***

For a while, there’s coping.

Things fly by in a rush, and Kenny’s stuck somewhere on a state of disbelief. Nothing seems real. It’s like one big fucked up dream. The world is altered, changed, and yet life goes on.

His dad turns to the bottle.

Kevin takes care of the paperwork. Hospital bills, funeral costs as well as their regular housing payments.

Both Karen and Kenny try to help, but he shoos them both away every time. Kenny knows enough about him to understand that it’s a way for him to keep busy, to keep himself occupied in order to stop his mind from drifting to the reality of the situation. He’d always been that way. When things got hard, Kevin found ways to quietly mend the situation on his own terms. Kenny had always kind of admired him for that.

Karen, the little trooper that she was, puts on a brave face and continues going to school and putting in hours at her part-time job. And Kenny does his best to follow her lead, continuing to go to work, bringing home food, and trying his best to seem optimistic because he’s always been pretty good with masks and he knows his family needs him now more than ever.

Still, the minutes and the hours and the days all start to blend together.

At some point, between the minutes and the days, he thinks Kyle might have called. That concerned lilt to his voice, a question on whether he should drive back to South Park. And Kenny faintly recalls telling him to stay at school, that he didn’t have to worry.

But he doesn’t really remember.

***

The funeral is a muted affair.

They don’t have much to spend on extravagances, but Kevin does a good job of making it respectable despite their less than ideal budget. And although it’s probably not the most appropriate thought for the time, as Kenny stands there in the small crowd of their family friends and acquaintances, he can’t help but wonder how many funerals they’d had for _him_ over the years. If maybe Kevin’s planning ability didn’t come from skill but instead practice, even if he himself didn’t know it.

It’s a thought he tries not to dwell on, even if it does serve as a bit of a mental distraction. Somehow, dealing with the thought of his own deaths was just a little easier. For as dark and unpleasant they were, they were also familiar.

Of course, where his life was concerned, the world always did have a strange sense of humor.

They’re walking home from the funeral together when it happens. Their house comes into sight, and Kenny finds his gaze drawn to a small spark of color by the train tracks. That stupid yellow flower that always regrew at the exact same spot. The thing itself reminding him of dozens of memories. Of the warmth of early childhood. A crayon drawing he’d first met the green gaze of Kyle Broflovski over. Of the start of a relationship. A flower placed into his hands as his princess dress grew heavy from the weight of the melting snow. Of prom dresses and fairytale moments like the ones that his mom used to tell him when he was a kid.

Without thinking, he finds himself diverging off the path his family is taking and heading over to the plant. He plucks it from the earth, and then twists the stem between his fingertips as his lips tilt into a small smile. Then, he steps forward. Thoughtlessly, no precaution, unaware of the error he’d made until his boot bumps the metal ridge of the train track and he realizes exactly where he’s standing.

He freezes. Eyes squinching shut as he braces for the inevitable.

The ring of a whistle. The blinding glare of the lights. The feeling of bone breaking inpact a moment before all went dark.

Only, it never comes.

Slowly, he opens his eyes. Muscles relaxing as he turns his gaze curiously towards the empty horizon, the tracks going on for miles without a train in sight.

“Kenny, are you coming?”

He glances over at Karen who was waiting for him a few feet ahead, Kevin and their dad already walking through the front door of their house.

“Yeah…” he says slowly, looking one last time at the empty tracks. “Yeah, I’ll be right there.”

***

The incident at the train tracks is not proof enough on its own. Yet, it is enough to make him more aware. Aware of things such as how long it’d been since the last time he’d died. That being longer than usual. And aware of a few things relating to his mom that maybe he should have paid more attention to, once upon a time.

Like the way that he’d sometimes catch her looking at him with something resembling guilt from out of the corner of his eye. And how sometimes when she thought no one was looking he’d see a dark undertone to her gaze that was unexplainable and just a little too familiar. And then there was also that one little fact he’d learned when he was a kid, that his parents had apparently gone to some sort of cult meeting, but that couldn’t have meant anything, right? At least he hadn’t thought so.

He’d always chalked it all up to him just wanting to believe something that wasn’t really there. That or it was a mother’s intuition or some shit, but what if it was more than that?

What if she _knew_?

And in that case, _how_ did she know? Had she been related to his curse somehow? And although that was a bit of a jump in logic, his dying had never exactly been logical. It would also explain why he hadn’t died a single time since she died, but then would that mean that he somehow had something to do with-

He’s restless.

He can’t get his thoughts under control, and before he knows they’re going down paths that he’d rather not ever go down. Normally he wasn’t prone to excessive overthinking, that was more Kyle’s problem, but he can’t seem to help it.

Restlessness. It’s all he feels.

It’s the uncertainty that’s the worst part. The fact that he should have asked, and now it’s far too late for that. And there are suddenly possibilities and so many things staring him straight in the face and he can’t seem to rationalize any of them. He needed someone to talk to, he needed...

He glances at his phone.

Seven missed calls.

 _Kyle_.

But he couldn’t talk to him about this. Not now. He was half a country away and he shouldn't have to deal with all this shit.

He’d just have to figure things out another way.

And so, leaving his phone on the table, Kenny pulls up his hood and walks out the door.

***

It’s late at night.

If he had to count the number of times he’d died walking down the sidewalk along this very road it’d be a long-ass list. It’s a road he’d take every day to and from school, at least on days he wasn’t taking the bus or Kyle or Stan decided to walk instead of drive.

Yet at this hour his track record is even worse. Multiple days he’d never made it home from work, the beam of headlights the only warning before a truck veered off the road and turned him into fucking roadkill. On the sidewalk no less. Because that had always been his fucking luck.

But tonight, he’s laying all his cards down on the table. All or nothing.

Taking a deep breath, he steps off of the sidewalk until he reaches the middle of the road. That’s where he stops.

And he waits.

The air is still for a few beats. Then he hears it, the rumble of an engine, a noise quickly followed by the unmistakable blinding glare of headlights.

Moving out of the way never worked, so he does what he always did. Squeezes his eyes shut and braces himself for impact.

The screech of the tires.

The blare of a car horn.

The faint brush of wind against his face and the tremor of the ground as the massive vehicle passes right by him.

“Get out of the middle of the road, jackass!”

Opening his eyes, Kenny watches as the truck continues speeding down the road until it turns the corner and vanishes.

***

Kenny avoids the sidewalk on his way home from work.

Instead he walks in the street. Off to the side, not in the middle, but just enough to tempt fate more than he would normally. Such has been his pattern for the past few days. And still, cars drive right by him as if he was any other person in the world, and he walks into the door to his house completely and utterly unharmed.

It’s late, Karen and Kevin already having eaten judging by the extra dishes near the sink, and his dad is passed out on the couch as usual. So, without checking if they’d put anything aside for him, he goes straight to his room and shuts the door behind him.

Changing out of his work uniform, he throws on sweatpants along with the orange hoodie Kyle had bought for him, and then flops down onto his bed with a sigh.

And that’s how Karen finds him moments later. An entrance preceded by a light knock on his door and a gently voiced question.

“Kenny, you in there? Can I come in?”

“Course’,” he answers, immediately sitting up as the door opens and then shuts behind her. She offers him a weak smile, and then wordlessly goes to sit beside him on his bed. It’s an action that’s common enough, this certainly not being the first time that Karen had gone to him for advice, or just to talk about their parents or something that had happened at school. But this time there’s something more pensive in her expression, as if she’s trying to figure the best way to approach what she wants to say, and it’s a little startling. Still, he waits patiently, knowing that she’d come to him for a reason and sometimes it was better not to push.

Finally, she releases a heavy breath through her nose and speaks.

“Kenny…I talked to Kyle.”

Muscles stiffening, he blanches and meets her eyes, finding her expression to be a tinge sheepish. And it wasn’t that it was a bad thing on its own, Karen and Kyle had never exactly been strangers after all, but instead it’s the unexpectedness of it that catches him off guard. He’d been trying not to think about Kyle, fighting his own personal war between how much he needed him and how hesitant he was to burden him with everything that was going on. Kyle always had a way of seeing right through him, and this wasn’t something he wanted to worry him with right now. Not when he was probably buried in school work half a country away.

Yet, this was a development he hadn’t considered.

“You what?” He chokes.

“Apparently you’ve been ignoring him,” she says, shooting him a hard look that he can’t help but shrink under. “So, he called me. He’s worried about you,” she continues, tone and expression both softening. “And...honestly I am too.”

“There’s nothing to be worried about, I’m fine-”

“No, you’re not,” she cuts in before he can even finish. A little taken aback, Kenny shifts his gaze to the floor, more than a little ashamed that his little sister had to be the one to call him out on his bullshit. And here he thought he’d been hiding it. Karen places a hand on his arm. “Kenny, you haven’t been yourself for a while,” she says gently. “I’ve noticed, Kevin noticed, and...mom noticed too. And now that she’s gone you’re only getting worse. So while I was talking to Kyle, he told me that you could go and move in with him, and...I think that might be a good idea,” she adds, giving his arm a light squeeze.

Kenny blinks at her, hardly believing what he’s hearing.

“And what, leave you guys?”

Her lips tilt into a half-smile, and she shifts to bump her shoulder lightly against his. “Me and Kev make a pretty good team, you know?” She says, because somewhere along the line apparently she’d become the reasonable one. Sometimes he forgot about that. “We’ll manage. I just want you to think about it, okay?”

He nods.

“Yeah, I’ll...do that,” he says a bit hesitantly, because despite what she might have said there was still so much about leaving that seemed impossible. Especially now.

Still, if she catches his weariness she doesn’t comment on it. Instead, she just lightly shoves his shoulder. “And stop avoiding your boyfriend,” she tells him. “Newsflash, he _cares_ about you. And if I have to sit through another round of twenty questions that you could have just answered yourself, I’m going to be _very_ upset.” Rising to her feet, she then jabs a finger at him. “Got it?”

Kenny’s lips quirk into a smile.

“Loud and clear, soldier.”

“Good,” she responds with a self-satisfied smile, one that doesn’t reach her eyes but is familiar and reminds him of when things used to be a whole lot easier. And although she’d given him a lot to think about, as she leaves his room and shuts the door behind her he finds himself feeling a bit better then he had before.

When was it that she’d gotten so strong?

***

His curse was gone.

It’s what every sign pointed to, the only conclusion that made sense. There was coincidence, and there was tempting fate and having it give him a pass every time when it sure as hell never went easy on him before. His mom had to have been linked to it. The cause, somehow? Or some hidden contingency clause in a contract he was never made aware of. Or _something_.

But for as much as he tries to rationalize the end, there’s still a buzzing under his skin. He didn’t feel any different. And there was always a chance that this was just his mind playing tricks on him, simply finding something he wanted to believe inside what was only a coincidence. Or hell, maybe whatever god was up there decided to give him a break so he could grieve for his mom in a way any normal person would.

Not like that was really working out.

He couldn’t let this go. He needed answers. Proof. And above all else there was one thing that he had to try. One thing that had been calling to him, that would answer his question once and for all.

The one thing that would give him the courage needed to test the limits he was too damn cowardly to try normally.

The costume is right where they left it, untouched since that day Kyle ripped apart his entire closet in one big determined act of affection. The day that Kenny had allowed him to go where no one else could, unearthing things from the past that he’d kept hidden. And the day that they’d locked eyes from over the damned costume...

_“Just promise me that you won’t use it…or if you do that you’ll at least tell me first?”_

....And he’d made Kyle a promise.

Gripping the dark cloth between his fingers, Kenny curses.

He could call Kyle and let him know, but there were about a million and a half things wrong with that idea.

As if he wasn’t making Kyle sick with worry already.

And to go out without telling him? When his curse might really be gone? Throwing himself straight into danger just to see if he’d really survive it?

What about Karen? And Kevin? Of all the _stupid_ , selfish things he could do. But it was a new line of thinking, one that he’d never had to consider before.

...What if this time he really didn’t come back?

Leaning his weight against his bedroom wall, Kenny slides down it until he’s seated on the floor. The fabric is heavy in his hands. Temptation. Every single dark thought telling him that Mysterion was immortal, that he’d never really die. That he was part of him. That the _curse_ would always be part of him.

That he had no idea who he was without it.

***

He doesn’t know how long he sits there.

Deep down he knows he should probably get up. Go and do something before Karen finds him and worries more than she is already, or even worse sees the costume and puts two and two together from her childhood. But he’s not really sure _what_ to even do at this point. Go to bed? Put on the costume anyway just to see if he feels any different? Finally suck it up and call Kyle like he should have over a week ago?

Yet, as it turns out, he never has to make that decision.

Distantly he’s aware of the familiar creak of rusted hinges, and for a brief moment he’s afraid that Karen decided to come check on him without knocking. But then that fear is quickly dissolved by the sound of a voice ripped straight from his dreams.

“Oh, babe…”

The words are breathless, barely audible, and yet they wrap around Kenny’s heart and squeeze. The pet name is unusual, and he’s rarely so softly spoken, but it’s _him_. Not a dream. Not a hallucination. Because he’s warm and real, kneeling down right in front of him with his green gaze bright with concern as his hands hold the sides of Kenny’s face.

“Ky, what are you doing here?”

His voice comes out a little too breathy, maybe a bit too awestruck, but Kyle’s lips curve into a familiar grin all the same.“You would know that already if you bothered to answer your phone. I was worried, you dumbass.”

Without his control, Kenny can feel his eyes start to get watery. Like the dam was just now opening, breaking through the numbness he’d felt since the day he’d sat there at his mom’s deathbed.

“Sorry,” he chokes.

Kyle’s expression softens, and he leans forward and pulls Kenny tightly into his arms. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner,” he tells him. “But I’m here now, for as long as you need me.”

With a low keening noise, Kenny buries himself into his hold. Everything around him was uncertain and confusing and _wrong_ , but Kyle had always been one of the only stable things in his life. The rock he could always latch onto. Yet phone calls were never the same, and he’d missed him more than he cared to admit. Because it was stupid, people did long distance relationships all the damn time, so why did just having him here already make things seem so much better then they were?

Hiding his face into the crook of his neck, Kenny just starts talking. Saying everything he’d been keeping inside, his private thoughts that had been circling his head nonstop. His voice is muffled but Kyle never had any problem understanding him. And so he tells him about his mom, and about everything that had happened in the last two weeks. About that stupid flower and the train that never hit him. About dark streets at night and cars that drove right past him. And by the time he reaches the end, Kyle’s hold on him has tightened, but he doesn’t offer a single word of rebuke.

“So, that’s why you have the costume?” He asks instead, finally pulling slightly away in order to fix a dark look at the cloth gathered on Kenny’s lap. “You were going to go out tonight?”

Kenny shakes his head. “Yeah, but I couldn’t do it,” he says, voice sounding small even to his own ears without it being muffled anymore. “I wanted to, I _still_ want to, just to see. But if my curse is gone...guess that really means there’s no coming back anymore.” Avoiding his eyes he adds, “It was stupid.”

Kyle gives a curt nod, but still doesn’t offer any sort of reprimand. “And you’ve never gone this long without dying before?”

He shakes his head, eyes not leaving the costume on his lap. “At least not that I can remember. I think it’s gone, Ky. It’s gone and I don’t know what that means.”

Kyle’s hands come to rest overtop of his own, and Kenny lifts his eyes to meet his. They’re bright, with that spark of raw determination and strength that Kenny had fallen in love with when he was a dumb kid, and that still never failed to stir something deep in his gut.

“We’ll figure it out,” Kyle tells him. “Together. But you can’t shut me out anymore.” He flips Kenny’s hands and gently moves apart the fingers that had been grasping the dark purple fabric like a lifeline. Kenny hadn’t even realized he’d been doing it. “You’re not alone, you know.”

And with that, Kyle takes the costume from his hands. Placing it to the side and then sliding Kenny’s hands between both of his own.

“...Yeah,” Kenny says, looking down at their interlaced fingers with a small smile. “I know.”

***

The fire that they build is nostalgic in a way.

It reminds Kenny of the bonfires they’d built not too long ago. High school years filled with parties and small get-togethers where they’d pass cheap booze around a fire and laugh it up like they weren’t on the verge of being actual adults. Now Kenny was really the only one of his friends left around here, and things weren’t quite the same as they used to be. Not by a long shot.

That’s not to say that everything changed. Or that all change was a bad thing.

“You ready?”

With a glance towards Kyle, Kenny nods and then steps forward.

It’s not as easy as it should be. The fabric twists around his fingers, reminding him of jumping across rooftops and fighting for his little sister on the playground. Of climbing up into Kyle’s window late at night, and choosing battles that were too big for anyone else to take. Reminds him of what it felt like to be someone else for a change. Fearless and brave.

With one final look at the dark purple costume in his hands, Kenny bunches it up and throws it in the fire.

And although he hated what that damned costume had to come to represent. Hated that cold detached face he’d seen in the mirror, and the way it had called to him for far too many years, Kenny suddenly finds himself getting a little choked up. In a way, it’s a little like saying goodbye to another friend. Another piece of his past, gone.

An arm wraps around his shoulders, and Kyle pulls him against his side. Releasing a shaky breath, Kenny leans against him.

Together, they watch it burn until it’s nothing but smoke and ash.

***

It’s early morning.

Karen had left for school not too long ago, and in the distance the familiar old bus to South Park elementary continued on the same route it’d taken for years.

Kenny’s sitting on the steps of their porch, a structure that has been an old pet project he and Kevin had built in an effort to make their house a little more substantial. It wasn’t exactly the grandest of designs, but it did its job well enough.

Sitting beside him is Kevin, and from the corner of his eye, Kenny watches as he downs the rest of his watered down coffee. It’s only as he places his empty cup on the old wood that Kevin decides to break the companionable silence.

“Soon as Kare-Bear’s off to college, I’m probably gonna go off to the military,” he says, tone conversational.

Kenny looks at him with muted surprise.

“Never pegged you for an army rat.”

“No?” Kevin questions with an uneven grin, leaning back and crossing his arms. “What, don’t think I have the look or something? Too soft round the edges for ya?”

Slightly cocking his head, Kenny takes in the image of his older brother. All lean muscle from all the time he spent working on houses and cars over the years, accompanied by a smalltown country charm that had won him quite a few girlfriends in his lifetime. Never was he as openly affectionate as he and Karen were, yet he was protective, loyal, and never let himself get controlled by his emotions. Instead viewing every situation with a clear and level head on his shoulders, something that Kenny had always admired about him.

Their dad might have been a deadbeat, but Kevin had stepped up to the plate without a word of complaint. As he always said, _when things got tough, keep your head up and keep on goin’_.

Karen, the bombass-little-soldier extraordinaire that she was, had definitely learned a lot from him.

With a slow shake of his head Kenny voices, “It’s more like I don’t think I ever really considered it.” Because it really wasn’t all that hard to see, now that he was looking.

Kevin hums in understanding. “Well, I have. Been thinking about it for a long time actually. Was just waitin’ for Ma to get better, or for you guys to stop needin’ me so damn much.”

He pairs his words with a light punch to Kenny’s shoulder, but before Kenny can do anything in response he’s distracted by the sound footsteps approaching them. Looking up, he spots Kyle, in all his slightly nerdy sweater and green skinny-jeaned glory. Once he got back to California he’d have to ditch the sweater for something less warm, but it was nice to see that he still looked the same as always.

“You headin’ out?” Kenny asks, getting to his feet to meet him.

“Yeah,” Kyle answers, although he seems anything but happy about it, hands shoved into his pockets and smile not reaching his eyes. Kenny knows the feeling, but it’s not like he could stay forever. Kyle had explained to him how he’d been waiting to take exams for a few classes before he allowed himself to drive back home. But he was still missing school, and even though he told Kenny he would stay if he needed him, Kenny was well aware that the longer he was away the more anxious he became about it. He’d already missed a full week of classes for him, and that was more than generous. “You’re sure you’re going to be okay?” Kyle adds, to which Kenny gives his best attempt at a comforting smile.

“Don’t you worry about me.”

With an amused lift of his brow, Kyle lightly jabs a finger at Kenny’s chest. “Don’t tell me what to do,” he quips back.

Quickly snatching his assaulting hand, Kenny traps it between both of his and then lifts it towards him,o pressing his lips against the back. “I always loved that rebellious streak of yours,” he says, a true grin forming against Kyle’s skin.

With his free hand, Kyle grabs the front of his shirt and yanks him in close.

He kisses him.

Lips warm like a softly burning flame, a stark contrast to the chill of the mountain air. Kenny had never been one for poetry or words that were pretty and flowery, but it’d been moments like this that he thinks he could give any corny-ass poet the run for his money. “And here they told me chivalry was dead,” Kyle says against his lips once they part, tone filled with amusement. Yet, when he pulls back his expression falls into something much more somber. “Take care of yourself, okay?” He adds seriously. “And you better answer your phone when I call.”

“Thanks-” he almost says _mom_ , before he nearly chokes on the word. “...For coming back.” Is what he adds instead, which is probably a better thing to say anyway, and long overdue.

Kyle gives him another smile, soft and fond, before he leans in to peck him on the lips one last time. “I love you,” he tells him, before he finally steps out of his hold.

Then Kenny watches as he turns and walks away. Back to his house and the car that would take him back to the place Kenny couldn’t follow.

“Your boyfriend, he leavin’ today?” Kevin speaks up, and Kenny jumps a little, having almost forgotten he was there.

“Uh huh...”

“Well, whataya still waitin’ around here for?”

Tearing his eyes from Kyle’s retreating form, he fixes a confused look on his brother.

“Huh?”

“You’re goin’ with him, aren’t ya?” Kevin asks, rising to his feet and brushing off his pants. When Kenny just continues to stare, he gives him an easy smile. “Go on out, live your life. I’ve got things handled here.”

“Kev, I can’t just leave. Especially not now, not when…”

He trails off, knowing he didn’t have to finish anyway.

Coming to stand beside him, Kevin claps him on the shoulder. “Ma woulda wanted you to be happy,” he says, giving him a light shove. “Go on, you’re free little bro.”

Kenny looks to his brother. All strong confidence paired with the way he had just said something so startling with such an amount of ease. He’d thought he’d never had the choice of leaving, that it was never an option for a million and a half reasons, but maybe a lot of those had only ever been excuses. Guilt for thinking about leaving and a hidden fear that he’d leave town only to die and wake up right back in his same old childhood bed as he always did. That his future was never really his own.

But...maybe it could be.

Eyes getting a bit watery, Kenny gives his brother a hopeful smile. “Thanks, Kev.”

***

He catches up with Kyle just as he crosses over the railroad tracks.

“Kyle!” He calls out, causing Kyle to start to turn towards him.

“Kenny? What- _oof_.”

Before he can even complete his sentence, Kenny flings himself forward, almost successfully knocking him off balance. Kyle steadies them both with a surprised laugh, and Kenny has never felt lighter. Practically bouncing with new energy, Kenny pulls back just far enough to meet his eyes.

“Do you have to leave now or can you wait an hour or two?” He asks him, watching as Kyle’s brow furrows in confusion.

“I guess I can wait, but why-”

“So I can get my stuff together,” Kenny cuts in, smile unwavering. “I can still come with you, right?”

Kyle blinks, looking completely thrown off kilter. It’s an adorable look on him, it wasn’t every day that Kyle Broflovski was so completely bewildered by something.

“What...I mean, _yes_ ,” he says, finally seeming to gain control of his words again. “ _Of course._ But I thought you said you couldn’t-”

“Things changed,” Kenny cuts in again, tone a bit more gentle this time. Sliding his hands up, his fingers play with the hair at the back of Kyle’s neck as he watches the surprise in his expression shift to something much softer.

“You’re serious about this?” He asks, an undeniably hopeful lilt to his voice. And all Kenny can really do is nod, suddenly feeling more than a little choked up.

Kyle’s quick to tighten his hold on him, crushing him into a hug in a fiercely affectionate gesture that’s uncharacteristic of him yet speaks a lot of how relieved he must feel. He’d been torn between two places and Kenny had really worried him. But things were going to be better now.

They were going to be okay.

“Well come on then,” Kyle says once the seconds turn to minutes and they finally pull apart. “I’ll help you pack.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyyy welcome back to the angst train! (Or just a general welcome if you're new) xD  
> Sorry I needed to put this fic on hiatus for a while, I was a little unsure what to do with a plotline or two. But it's been solved and we are back in business my dudes :) This fic is being moved into a regular update schedule until we hit the end<3


	19. The Escapist

The thing about romance movies and love songs is that they never really paint the full picture.

When it comes to the end of relationships, it’s always simplistic. A fight where words cut a little too deep, or a discussion or break up text where it’s made clear that things just aren’t working out.

But in truth, things were never really that black and white. By all definitions, he and Wendy should have worked. That had been the very thing he’d been hanging onto for all of their time together, a dream that had always been just a little too far out of reach. One that he’d finally let go in the pursuit of something else. Of _someone_ else.

Things with Butters were _supposed_ to be perfect.

But things were never really that simple.

***

The thing that Stan quickly learns is that the line between _“just friends”_ and _“in a relationship”_ turns out to be not as clear cut as it should be.

For one, when was it that just _“hanging out”_ crossed into the realm of _“it’s a date”_ territory? Dinner and a movie seemed a lot like a date when it was just the two of them, yet in reality they had simply been bored and hungry.

Still, it’s the waiting that’s the worst part. Every single day that passed by in the strange sort of limbo, while meanwhile, he wasn’t even sure what it was he’s waiting for. Not sure if there’s some sign he should be aware of, or if Butters was planning to just pull him close one day and kiss him. Or maybe it was something that Stan himself was supposed to be doing. Maybe all this time he was supposed to be proving himself or something; yet, then again it’s not like he really knew how to do that either.

So, if a girl with a charming smile were to catch his eye from across the hall, did that mean that he shouldn’t approach her? Or if someone happened to ask a simple question, one that should be clearly defined, as they were now, did that mean he was supposed to have a clear-cut answer?.

“Hey I was just wondering, are you seeing anyone?”

Stan grips the book he had been shoving back into his backpack with both hands, knuckles turning white. The words are said with a sweet smile, the girl who says them cute with a dusting of freckles across her cheeks, and all Stan can do is continue to stare like an idiot.

Her smile falls a bit, confidence wavering, a tinge of confusion befalling the slope of her brow as Stan spends the time he should be answering lost somewhere deep in his own head.

“...Not at the moment,” he manages finally, feeling half like a liar and half like an idiot. Still, her smile regains its prior brightness, dimples showing on her cheeks.

“Cool,” she says cheerfully. “We should get a coffee or something sometime.”

And whether it’s due to the hidden prospect of _maybe_ , or whether it’s simply because Stan always hated disappointing people, he finds himself agreeing.

“Yeah, totally.”

And with that, she takes a small notepad off the top of her books, tears out a page and jots down her name followed by a number, before sliding it across the desk to Stan. Then with a smile, she turns and exits the lecture hall with the rest of the remaining students who were still making their way out.

Once she’s gone, Stan looks down at the piece of paper and then over to the trash can.

The thing was, if Butters turned around and told him he was ready to take things to the next level, or kissed him, or _something_ , then being in an exclusive relationship wouldn’t be a problem.

Stan knew how to do that.

It was this weird gray area they were in that only made him more confused.

With a small sigh, he folds the paper and pockets it.

***

It’s early evening, the sun just starting to dip below the clouds, when Stan decides to give Kyle a call. It was Thursday, so his own classes were over for the day, and he knew that Kyle’s classes ended in the afternoon on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

His best friend picks up on the second ring.

“Hey-”

However, Kyle’s greeting is cut off by a sudden barrage of highly explicit sounds. A series of pornographic moaning and grunting that Stan desperately wishes he could unhear, yet had ended up scorching its way into his memory. He curses, fumbling with his phone in his desperation to take it off speaker, hoping that his roommate happened to be out or was preoccupied with something else. Otherwise explaining this was going to be a hell of a pain. Pressing the phone up against his ear, Stan cringes at the still continuing sounds.

 _“Jesus christ!_ Really!?”

“Kenny, can you stop with the porn noises?” Kyle asks through his obvious laughter, but the noises do cut out to Stan’s immense relief. Pinching the bridge of his nose with a sigh, Stan somewhat warily puts his phone back on speaker.

“Does he seriously do that every time you get a phone call?” He asks, and Kyle snorts.

“Don’t be stupid, it’s only for you.”

...Of course it was. He really needed to get better friends.

“I’m honored,” he states dryly.

Kyle snickers and Kenny’s voice can faintly be heard in the background, distance from the phone making his words intelligible.

“Hold on,” Kyle says, “I’m putting you on speaker.”

“Stan!” Kenny immediately pipes up as soon as he does so. “What’s good, my dude!?”

“Hey, Kenny.”

At his still dry tone, he hears Kyle muffle a bit of quiet laughter. But really, what else did they expect? Kenny knew what he was doing and Stan was _suffering_.

“Hey now, don’t sound too excited,” quips Kenny.

“The fake porn noises are getting old, you know,” Stan defends himself because he knew _one_ of these times someone was going to be around and he’d never be able to look them in the eye again. Not to mention, hearing one of his childhood best friends moan and whimper like a pornstar wasn’t exactly on his agenda for the day.

“Who says they’re always fake?” Kenny bites back, and Stan can practically picture the lift of his brow and that stupid smug smile he always got whenever he went _far_ into _nope_ territory. That territory that Stan always wanted to avoid since he much preferred living in a world where he never had to confront the reality that his two best friends actively boned each other.

“ _Aww_ dude!”

And because he’s a terrible friend, Kenny immediately falls into a fit of laughter.

“You bring this on yourself, you know,” Kyle cuts in, unmistakable amusement lining his tone. Assholes, the both of them.

“Whatever, man,” he says back, disagreeing but not really caring enough to argue. “So,” he adds, “I take it you’re not tired of each other yet?”

And the question isn’t simply mocking, because he was honestly curious. When Stan had first heard they’d be living with each other, he’d have been lying if he said he didn’t have his doubts. He was pretty sure it was a well-known fact that living with the person you’re dating is a pretty big test of a relationship and, as he understood it, the whole arrangement had happened pretty suddenly. Still, it was almost two months since they’d first moved in together, and it seemed that they weren’t having any problems.

There’s a familiar pang in his gut at the thought, but he tries not to dwell on it.

Kyle, unaware of Stan’s thoughts, lets out a snort. “Not at all, although I think our roommate wishes we would be.”

“He’s jealous of our sex life,” Kenny speaks up, finally getting ahold of himself. “I asked him if he wanted to be part of a threesome but-”

“Don’t listen to Kenny,” Kyle interrupts, “he’s lying.”

“Yeah, Kyle didn’t want to share me.”

“And you’d share me?” Kyle immediately questions in response to Kenny’s quip, and Stan knows that tone well. Being friends with Kyle for as long as he has, Stan pretty much has that slightly amused arch of his eyebrow ingrained into his memory.

That was all well and good, it was Kenny’s response however that started making things a _tinge_ uncomfortable for the now obvious third wheel.

“Nope,” Kenny says, voice soft and leagues too intimate for Stan’s ears, “your ass is _mine_.”

And now, feeling distinctly uncomfortable, Stan decides at that moment that somehow the fake porn noises were better.

“Uh guys?” Stan says quickly before his two best friends started making out, completely forgetting he was on the line. Or simply not caring. It certainly wouldn't be the first time. “I’m still here.”

“Yeah...” Kyle responds, voice a bit thicker than before, which Stan tries his best to ignore. “What was it you called for anyway? There a reason or…?”

“Sort of,” is Stan’s answer. He pauses, and when there’s no response he then adds, “It’s about the situation with Butters.”

There’s a deep sigh from Kyle’s end. “This again?”

“Nothing’s changing, Kyle!” Stan exclaims with a groan of frustration. “Everything’s confusing as hell, and I keep waiting around but I don’t even know how long I’m supposed to be waiting for...”

He allows his voice to trail off then, expecting yet again one of Kyle’s tired and slightly exasperated sighs. Yet, Kyle was smart, had always been smart, and Stan trusted his advice wholeheartedly. Except, it’s not Kyle who answers, instead Kenny’s the one who speaks up first.

“...Stan, I think you’re missing the point of being single.”

It hadn’t been the answer he’d been expecting, and Stan’s brow scrunches in confusion.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean you’re in college!” Kenny urges. “Go out, live a little! Half the point of not rushing into a relationship is to give yourself the time to look at all your other options. Sitting there waiting for a chance to jump or some shit ain’t gonna do either of you any favors.”

Stan turns that around in his head but still feels as if he’s missing something. It’s a feeling that followed him around for most of his life, and he really wished that there was an instruction booklet or something he could follow on romance. Because no matter what, things were confusing and it seemed that he could never get a straight answer from anyone.

“You think I should date other people?” He asks, thinking back to that phone number the girl had given him that was now sitting folded in his desk drawer, unwilling to throw it away but unsure if he should shoot her a message.

“Uh well, not exactly,” Kenny says, some of the enthusiasm leaving his tone. “That’s not really what I meant but I don’t know dude, if that’s what you want to do then I can’t exactly tell you not to? It’s not like you and Butters are dating or anything.”

Stan considers this, and although it’s somewhat of an answer, Kenny doesn’t exactly sound encouraging and so it still leaves him with a bad taste in his mouth. Besides, the person whose opinion he really wanted to hear had been oddly quiet.

“...Kyle?”

“I’m not Wendy, Stan,” Kyle says after a moment, the words paired with a heavy exhale. And as soon as the words leave his mouth, that part of Stan that was still weak to the sound of Wendy’s name like it's an old wound, gives a painful lurch. “I’m not going to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do.”

“What the hell, dude?” Stan snaps, voice coming out much weaker then he’d intended. “Wendy has nothing to do with this.”

“You dated her for most your life,” Kyle points out, not unkindly. “Of course she does. If Kenny and I ever split up, you think I’d have half an idea of what to do with myself? But I think that’s what you need to figure out.”

“I’m not still hung up on her,” Stan defends, because he at least knew that was true. He hadn’t talked to Wendy since she walked out of his life, and he’d finally allowed himself to move on. Or...at least he thought he had? Of course he missed her, but that was normal. Wasn’t it?

“I’m not saying you are,” Kyle answers. “But let’s be real here, you pretty much built your life around her, Stan. So, maybe instead of worrying about getting into another relationship, you should instead focus on yourself for a while.”

There’s a part of Stan that wants to argue with him, to defend himself in some way, yet there’s another part of him that knows he’s right. He might have let go of Wendy, but she’d made an imprint of herself on his heart. Things were a lot different without her around, and more than anything he missed her sense of purpose and direction. As long as he was following her, he’d always known that she’d lead him in the right direction. Now, he really didn’t know where to even start.

“So...you think I should concentrate on school?”

“That’s part of it,” Kyle answers him. “But it’s like Kenny said, just take some time to have fun being single.”

At that, a smile tugs at Stan’s lips.

“Are you actually telling me to party?”

Kyle snorts. ”I’m just suggesting you relax before you turn into a fucking _Jane Austen_ novel.”

“But also party,” Kenny adds, and Stan’s a little surprised he was still standing there. “Once you get all domestic your partying days are done.”

Yet before Stan can respond, Kyle interjects with a sound of disapproval.

“I asked you if you wanted to go out the other night,” he points out, “but _you_ said you wanted to stay in and-”

“Technicalities, babe,” Kenny quickly answers.

***

It’s a somewhat cloudy and somber Saturday, and so he and Butters decide to make it a movie day. Stan’s not entirely sure what they’re seeing, it’s Butters’ pick this time, but as he sits across from him at a table at the bistro right next door to the theater, film titles are about the last thing on his mind.

Butters hadn’t said much since they’d met up about an hour ago, and even now he was busy typing away on his phone, which was definitely a bit unusual for him. In front of him sat his almost untouched plate of food, french toast, his preferred meal of choice since they were kids. In fact, there was a lot about him that remained unchanged since they were kids. A certain naivety and demeanor that brought Stan back to his childhood back in South Park. Being with Butters was almost nostalgic in a way, made it feel as if he too had never really grown up.

Maybe...that had always been the appeal with him.

Stan quickly shakes the thought from his head.

“So,” Stan finally speaks up, breaking the silence. “Who are you texting?”

Butters’ gaze shoots up from his phone as if startled. “Oh it’s um no one,” he says without meeting Stan’s eyes. “No one important I mean.”

“...Okay?” Stan questions, not sure what else he should say. He doesn’t want to be nosey and push, he’s not like Kyle in that way. Yet, when Butters only gives him a small smile before looking back down towards his phone, Stan’s left with a million more questions and none of them have answers.

***

It’s hard to focus on anything else when there’s a certain degree of fear that something is happening behind the scenes.

He knows that Kyle and Kenny had told him to try and have fun not being in a relationship for a while, but the truth of the matter is that it’s a lot easier in theory than in practice. Maybe he would have had more success if not for Butters’ sudden strange shift in behavior. Without all of the constant looking down at his phone and shifty responses that gave away the fact that he was hiding something. What he was hiding, however, is something that Stan is wary of asking about as well as partly afraid to know the answer to. And so, he does nothing.

Just continues waiting.

The months start passing by in a flurry of school work, and before he knows it, his sophomore year of college is coming to a close. Meanwhile Butters, even with finals coming up, is still as glued to his phone as ever. And so, Stan finally comes to terms with the most logical conclusion, even though he wanted so badly to convince himself otherwise.

The phone rings three times before Kyle answers. “Hey dude, what’s up?”

“I think Butters is dating someone,” Stan blurts, cutting straight to the point. A testament to his stressing over the issue, as well as the restraint it’d taken in keeping the root of his fears hidden from his best friend.

There’s a brief pause on the other line before Kyle lets out a long exhale.

“Is this about the texting thing again?”

Stan can’t help but feel a little hurt by his blasé response; yet, this was _Kyle_. He’d need a really good argument before he would believe any wild accusations or assumptions, which was fair. Sometimes it was nice to have someone with a level head around. If he could get Kyle to agree with him, then he’d finally know that his conclusion had merit, or alternatively, Kyle might simply tell him he was seeing things that weren’t there.

“Yeah I mean,” Stan begins in explanation, “he never tells me who he’s talking to, and it’s not like he normally lies. And that has to mean he’s dating someone but he probably doesn’t want to tell me and I don’t know if I should just ask or…?”

There’s another tired sounding sigh from the other line.

“You know what, why don’t you come and stay with us over summer break?” Kyle asks unexpectedly, and Stan blinks in surprise.

“What? You mean in Berkeley?”

“Yeah,” he answers, tone conversational. “Mike’s switching schools so he’s moving out once this semester ends, and Kenny and I decided to keep renting the place for ourselves.”

“You two can afford that?” The question slips out without him really meaning too, because it wasn’t like he ever liked to pry into anyone’s financial situation. Especially when it involved Kenny since he knew very well how sensitive he could be about it. So, Stan was thankful that his blond friend wasn’t around during this particular conversation, because Kyle himself answers without even batting an eye.

“I mean it’s going to make things a bit harder without Mike’s help, but Kenny’s still making a shit-ton in tips,” he explains casually. “Enough to keep sending money back to Karen and still help with the rent here.”

“He still working at that same restaurant?”

Kyle makes a noise of confirmation. “It’s pretty high-end and almost always busy.” He pauses, and then tone turning a bit prideful he adds, “Besides, Kenny’s damn good at his job.”

Once again Stan feels that familiar pang, although this time it’s easier to recognize the jealousy for what it is. Stan didn’t work, choosing instead to focus on school, but it was still impossible to ignore the student loan debt that was piling up with every single class he took, as well as the fact that he was still almost entirely dependent on his parents.

“If I come down for the summer, you think he could get me in there?” Stan asks him, only half joking.

“Yeah no,” Kyle answers immediately, but it wasn’t like he was expecting much else. “I’m not inviting you down here to work, dude. If you want to get something part-time then that’s on you, but I think you need a break from everything. And that’s coming from _me_.”

The bit of self-awareness at the end startles a laugh out of Stan, it was a rare day when Kyle outright spoke about his faults. And Stan would be lying if he said that the idea of traveling down to California to spend the summer with his two best friends didn’t sound like one of the best ideas he’d ever heard.

“You’re probably right,” he agrees.

“I usually am.”

***

The flight from Denver, Colorado to California feels a lot longer than it actually is. It’s only about a three-hour flight, yet keeping his attention on anything but his own thoughts during that time proves to be a challenge. There’s a sense of apprehension, but also an indisputable excitement at the thought of finally seeing his two best friends again.

When he arrives at Oakland International Airport, Kyle’s already there waiting for him. It’d been a little over a year since they’d seen each other face to face, and it’s a little bit surreal finally seeing him again in the middle of a busting and unfamiliar airport.

As he approaches him, Kyle gives him a slight look of impatience, as if Stan himself was responsible for the fact that he’d likely gotten there early and then been forced to wait for him. Yet, the grin he gives him as he approaches quickly overshadows any annoyance.

“Hey dude,” Kyle greets, returning the quick hug Stan gives him and clapping him in the back. When they pull back, Stan looks around the area in question, surprised that Kenny didn’t seem to be around.

“So, where’s your better half?”

“He had an early shift today,” Kyle answers easily, “but he should be back by the time we get to the house.”

Stan nods and keeps pace with Kyle as they begin making their way out of the airport, happy to follow his lead. Airports were always confusing to him, but thankfully Kyle seemed to know exactly where he was going.

“Say you guys aren’t going to like fuck on the kitchen table while I’m here, are you?” Stan asks him as the sudden horrifying thought emerges, and Kyle snorts.

“Not while you’re around.”

“ _Dude_!”

At the sound of his genuine horror, Kyle bursts out laughing. “Relax,” he says, lightly shoving Stan’s shoulder. “Kenny and I had a roommate for the past two years, remember?”

“...And then he switched schools,” Stan points out, not finding his argument to be at all comforting. Kyle gives him a look, and crosses his arms across his chest.

“Hey don’t look at me like that, I’ll have you know that Mike never even complained,” he assures. “He was a cool dude, and we respected him enough to keep things quiet.”

Stan, once again, does _not_ find his argument to be comforting.

“So, in other words, I’m screwed,” he deadpans, getting flashbacks to fake porn noises and sudden makeout sessions he was forced to deal with from the other side of the line.

Kyle raises a brow at him. “Your faith in me is astounding.”

“I’m a realist.”

“Debatable.”

And that’s how their conversation goes, a simple back and forth that’s as simple and natural as breathing. Before he knows it they’re in the parking lot getting into Kyle’s car, and they drive off in a mixture of laughter and sarcasm. Not that it was a surprising development in the least, their phone calls passed by in much the same way, after all. Yet, seeing him in person after so long apart, Stan can’t help but find that there’s something different about Kyle. Something that he wasn’t able to really pick up on over the phone, and he can’t quite put his finger on it at all until the moment they step out of the car and get ready to enter the apartment complex.

It’s in the way that he carries himself.

Looking well rested for maybe the first time in his life, with the tension gone from his shoulders and a certain lightness to his steps.

Stan would have thought he’d be more stressed than ever with college weighing down on him, but it seemed the opposite was true. He seemed... _calmer_. More at ease.

And Stan can’t help but envy him for it, because while he was stuck questioning his every decision, Kyle seemed to share none of his problems. Instead, in a state miles away from his own, within the hustle and bustle of the city accompanied by the almost constant sunshine, it looked as if Kyle had found exactly what he’d been looking for.

Then again, maybe the location itself couldn’t take _all_ of the credit.

Kenny is there to greet them when they reach the door to their shared apartment.

The moment he and Kyle enter through the threshold, Kenny practically jumps to his feet from where he’d been sitting at the kitchen island. “Hey, dude!” Kenny greets him, and much like he had with Kyle, they both go in for a standard bro hug complete with two claps on the back before they simultaneously pull away. “How was your flight?”

“Some kid kept kicking the back of my seat.”

“Should have kicked them back,” Kenny quips with a grin and Stan laughs.

“I’ll remember that for next time.”

Kenny looks like he’s about to say something else when he’s interrupted by Kyle who’d since made his way over to the fridge.

“Kenny, we’re almost out of water,” he tells him, pulling out two bottles and then closing the door.

“I’ll pick up a case on my way home from work,” Kenny offers, and Kyle nods, taking a moment to jot something down on a notepad attached to the door of the fridge. A shopping list, probably.

And Stan can’t help but find the whole scene to be startlingly domestic. Surreal, in a way. It was weird to see his two best friends like this, renting out their own place in a state that was half a country away from their hometown. Buying their own groceries, with shopping lists, and an apartment that was a million times nicer than the place Stan was renting.

It was small but brightly lit, due to the large sliding glass window against the back wall that opened up to a small little porch. The second-floor height giving them enough of a view to see the outline of the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, and miles of California sun in between.

It was…nice. Really nice.

Making his way over to him, Kyle offers him one of the water bottles and Stan slowly takes it. “...Thanks,” he says, distracted and a little overwhelmed.

Kyle and Kenny had finally figured out exactly where they needed to be. The very thing that Wendy had set out to find for herself.

And yet, where did that leave Stan?

Barely passing his classes despite putting in the effort. A criminal justice major because of the sheer fact that being a cop always seemed cool even though in reality he hated blood and didn’t even know if joining the police force back in South Park would even be worth his time. And that’s if they’d even hire him. Not to mention the strange limbo and constant unsurety he felt with Butters.

It really must have been nice to have life all figured out.

***

Within the first few weeks of staying in Berkeley, it doesn’t take long for Stan to realize why Kyle fit in so well. Sure it was a little bit of a shock going from Colorado into the harsh California sun, and there seems to be no lack of homeless and the air quality is heavier than he’s used to, which was likely due to smog. Yet, even with that, there’s still definitely a sunny charm that goes along with the whole place.

There are more bookshops and libraries then Stan’s used to, and there’s a different type of restaurant every place he looks. Not to mention the health consciousness that everyone seemed to have, with fermented teas and protein powder, and more cyclists then Stan had ever seen in one place. It was a green city despite its proximity to San Francisco, and if people weren’t talking about one protest or environmental issue or another, then he could overhear them talking about politics or some scientific development that went way beyond anything Stan knew, but that Kyle would probably know a lot more about.

It was a place that had _Kyle_ written all over it, and although Stan wasn’t too sure he could ever get used to living there, it really did have a certain charm.

...Wendy probably would have liked it too.

It’s a thought that hits him multiple times as he explores the town. After all, Wendy and Kyle had always been a lot alike, and sometimes he can’t quite stop himself from wondering if Wendy could have found herself here instead of joining the Peace Corps and traveling the world. Although, deep down he knows that she wouldn’t have. She always did have big dreams.

Kyle, meanwhile, was finding himself in his own way. For the first time taking a step away from his father’s shadow and his parent's expectations to instead do what he wanted. It was part of the reason that he and Kenny had decided to stay throughout the summer, as Stan soon finds out. Kyle was taking two summer courses since he’d decided to switch his major from Pre-law to English and Journalism. And Stan was proud of him for it, even if his two summer classes had the unfortunate side effect of robbing Stan of his best friend some days. So when Kyle was either studying or at school and Kenny was at work, Stan didn’t really know what to do with himself.

It’s on one of these days that Stan finds himself going to a bar. Probably not the best of choices he could have made, especially considering it was early, with the sun still high in the sky. Yet, as he walks into the small place it’s almost entirely empty save for the bartender and about two other customers, and Stan appreciates it since he wasn’t really in the mood for crowds at the moment. There’s an older man taking up one barstool, looking a little worse for wear but chatting with the bartender in a way that suggested they knew each other well. Probably a regular. Then a little further in he could see someone sitting out on the bar’s porch, which just so happened to be where Stan had been planning to go. It was a nice day, after all.

So, he orders his usual before making his way outside. There are only a few tables and chairs, but out of respect he doesn’t look at the other person in case they weren’t in the mood for talking, and chooses to sit at the table beside theirs. Of course, the silence doesn’t last long, since apparently, this particular person did not share Stan’s idea of leaving people alone to their thoughts.

“Drinking in the middle of the afternoon, huh?”

Startled by the pitch of their voice, Stan shoots his gaze over at the stranger only to be met with the sight of a girl about his age. Probably a college student. Her feet propped up on the table, and a cigarette spitting smoke from between the bed of her fingers. Long hair as dark as Wendy’s partly covered by a black beanie, paired off by a certain disinterested vibe that he’d only ever seen matched by the goth kids and Craig Tucker.

She raises a brow at him, and it’s only then that he remembers she’d asked him a question.

“Yeah, guess so,” he answers with a bit of a shrug, unsure of what else he was supposed to say.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“...Why?” He meets her offer with skepticism, because most people never really asked him about his problems, and she was a stranger. Someone he’d just met, who happened to look pretty bored with life, and as if she wouldn’t even care if Cthulhu suddenly appeared out of the San Francisco Bay.

Then again, maybe that was the exact reason she was asking, because she responds with a shrug and a simple, “Why not?”

Maybe it’s the alcohol that does it, or maybe it’s because she has Wendy’s eyes, but for some reason Stan decides to take her offer. He intends only to tell her the basics, speak only until she gets up and flees the scene, except she never does leave. Just continues listening, nodding along at parts and offering occasional comments between drags of her cigarette and small sips of whatever fancy drink she was slowly nursing. And so, Stan just keeps on talking, ends up spilling a lot to her about his past. About the girl he dated since he was a kid and then about Butters who came later. About the jealousy he still held towards his two best friends, and his complete confusion on what he should do.

By the time he finishes, they’ve both emptied their second order of drinks, and her second cigarette has made its home next to the first in the ashtray. A few beats pass in silence before she casually asks a very weighted question.

“Well, do you love him?”

“Who, Butters?” Stan asks and she nods. He pauses, contemplating, before releasing a small sigh. “I don’t know, I thought I did.”

“But now you’re not so sure?”

He shrugs in answer. If there was one thing he learned it was that love was complicated, and he seemed to have a habit of getting it wrong.

“Well,” she says when Stan doesn’t bother explaining, “it’s not like you have to figure it out right now. You’ve still got time.”

“But what if I don’t?” He asks quietly, voicing the one fear that was never far from his mind, even when everyone seemed to be telling him not to rush into things. “What if I go back home only to realize that Butters is with someone else, or moves to study abroad in some other country, and I realize I missed my only chance.”

He doesn’t really expect an answer, at least not a real one. _It’s not the end of the world_ , or _don’t worry so much_. Responses that were neutral, yet never really answered anything. However, when she speaks, it’s to say something he hadn’t at all been expecting.

“If he’s so quick to move on, don’t you think that’d mean your relationship wouldn’t have lasted anyway?” She asks, and when he looks at her in surprise she gives a small shrug. “I mean, from what you told me you’ve already laid all your cards out on the table, so now it’s up to him to decide when he’s ready, and for you to decide if you’re willing to wait until he is.”

And although what she says makes sense, it’s still not the easy solution he had been hoping for.

“...Waiting fucking sucks,” he voices, knowing he sounds like a whiny kid, but not really giving a shit.

“Well he waited for you all those years, didn’t he?” She points out because apparently she really had been listening. Stretching out her upper back, she then settles back down into the cushion of her chair. “Besides, it’s only shitty if you make it that way. Being single ain’t so bad, trust me,” she adds with a wink.

And just like that, it finally clicks.

Stan stares at her, feeling half like a giant idiot, and half feeling that this girl, who had Wendy’s eyes and chain-smoking habits that were out of place in this health-conscious city, might just be the smartest person he’d ever met.

How was it that it took a complete stranger to finally make him understand what everyone else had been trying to tell him all along?

***

The thing that Stan finally learns in a state so far away from his own, is that he had no idea what he wanted.

He’d been stuck for so long on the way things should be, concentrating on the line between finding love and having a good future, that he’d forgotten to look at the steps between them. Had been so stuck on what he’d seen on TV, that he’d been ignoring what everyone had been trying to tell him all along.

That maybe he wasn’t even ready for love. Or romance. That maybe he was looking for another best friend, one that he wanted to spend every second of his life with. Someone who would eventually make him realize that there wasn’t really that much difference between love and friendship in the first place.

He looks to where Kenny and Kyle are whispering and laughing to each other, something that was commonplace for the two of them. Had _always_ been. Only now it was with the sand warm beneath them and the sun beaming overhead in the place that they’d learned to call home together.

And for the first time in a while, Stan feels not an ounce of jealousy. Because maybe true love was just...something that fell into place.

He just needed to be patient.

“You guys were right,” he tells them without preamble, causing them both to look away from each other and back at him.

“Unsurprising,” Kyle answers first out of the two of them, “but what about?”

“About me needing to give the whole ‘obsessing over Butters’ situation a break,” he answers and then pauses, attempting to find the best way to phrase things. “I think…” He starts off slowly, “I think that maybe I was always just jealous of what you two had. But I...but I still don’t know if I’ve found that. Or when I will, since it’s not exactly something you can force.”

His two best friends just stare at him for a moment as if he’d grown another head. They share a glance with each other, before turning back to him again.

“Who are you and what did you do with my best friend?” Kyle asks him, the first hint of a smile quirking on his lips.

“Ha. Ha. Laugh it up,” Stan says dryly, although he finds himself mirroring Kyle’s grin. “I had a realization, and from now on I’m going to stop worrying about dating and start concentrating on my own life.”

“Aww,” Kenny coos, playfully adding in his own version of approval. “Little Stanny’s growing up. I’m so proud.”

“Shut the hell up.”

Stan shoots a glare at Kenny, but there’s not a trace of fire behind it, he was in too much of a good mood for that. A good mood that only increases when he notices Kyle’s look of genuine warmth, one that was normally reserved for Kenny and sometimes Ike on a good day.

“That’s really great to hear, Stan,” he tells him, and Stan finds himself looking away and rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly, not used to things between them getting mushy and sentimental.

“Yeah well, thanks for inviting me down here,” he mutters.

“Anytime, dude.”

***

The days quickly turn to weeks, and before he knows it summer was reaching its end.

In a little over a week, Stan would be heading back to Denver, Colorado for a whole new year of homework and studying. Would return to seeing Butters on the regular, which was just as much of an exciting prospect as it was terrifying. He hadn’t spoken to Butters much since they parted for summer break, the occasional text here and there, but that was it. And so now it would be up to Stan to take everything he’d learned in these past weeks and make sure that he never returned to old patterns. Although, he had a feeling he’d be okay. He felt better than he had in a long time and he wasn’t about to forget that.

Kyle’s summer classes had finally ended, and he’d convinced Kenny to take a few days off work so that the three of them could do whatever they wanted during Stan’s last week in Berkeley. So, today they were heading out with plans to go explore Tilden Regional Park, a place that apparently had _“animals and shit”_ that Stan would be _“totally into”_. Except, the minute that the three of them step out of the doors of their apartment complex, Kyle stops dead in his tracks.

“I don’t fucking believe it,” he curses.

It’s not until Stan follows his gaze that he realizes why.

At first his eye gets drawn to Butters who’s stepping out from the passenger seat of a car, live and in person, despite the fact that he’d specifically told Stan that he was going home to stay with his family over summer break. However, it’s not _his_ presence that causes even Kenny to mutter out a curse, and instead, it’s the far too familiar face who looks up at the sound of Kyle’s words before slamming shut the driver-side door.

“Well, it’s good to see you too, Kahl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I've been super busy lately, but I swear I'm working as hard as I can to get this fic finished. We're so close to the end, just a few more chapters o.o
> 
> As always, comments are super appreciated!<3

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has amazing fanart thanks to Townycod13 and Whookami, so do yourself a favor and please go check out the tag:  
> https://panacea-for-all-evil.tumblr.com/search/Measurefictag


End file.
